Nuance (News - Alert) Communications may not be the first company that comes to mind for smart grid, but they very much have a role to play for utilities. I just briefed with them about an application called Proactive Notifications, and it speaks directly to some emerging communications challenges that utilities face as the smart grid starts to take hold with subscribers. You won't find anything about this on their website, but Nuance has been working with utilities for years in their contact centers, so you'll just have to take my word on this one.

Regular TMC (News - Alert) readers will know Nuance for speech recognition and IVR platforms, and this application builds on these technologies and addresses some real business issues for utilities. The core issue here is how smart grid deployments are changing the fundamental relationship between utilities and subscribers, especially in the home. For those of us in the telecom world, we understand how IP has enabled real time, two-way networks and how that impacts the communications process. To date, the relationship between utilities and their subscribers has basically been a one-way energy feed and monthly bill we get in the mail.

Smart grid, of course, changes all that, and while most of the focus has been on the energy infrastructure, subscribers now have an active stake in the equation. AMI deployments are a first step here, but a lot more is coming - via both wireline and wireless connections - and utilities will have to engage with subscribers in entirely new ways. On one level, utilities derive value here by working with subscribers to better manage their energy consumption. Conservation benefits aside, this is simply good business for utilities as it helps lower their costs of production. On another level, however, utilities are poised to play a larger role as subscribers strive to be cleaner and greener consumers of energy.

All of this adds up to an expanded dialog with subscribers. For better or worse, smart grid creates new channels of communication, and utilities have to become more engaged. They may still essentially be monopolies, but their business is very public, and ignoring the customer is not an option.

Nuance is helping utilities enter this new territory, and not surprisingly, it doesn't take long to discover how ill-equipped they really are. Utilities have major investments in contact centers and having working with them there, Nuance already has a good understanding of their capabilities. Nuance estimates that every call into a contact center costs the utility about $9. Over time, smart grid initiatives will give subscribers many new reasons to call for help, and this is a challenge for utilities. This new influx of calls will be overwhelming, expensive and time-consuming for agents to handle. Furthermore, these calls are not expected to generate new revenue, so there is an imperative here for utilities to minimize the number of inbound calls related to smart grid.

In essence, Proactive Notifications provides a better way to manage this.  Nuance has developed this solution out of the expertise that comes from their partnership with Multivision Communications, which goes back to 2008. As the name implies, this IVR platform delivers automated notifications to subscribers on an opt-in basis about a variety of things related to smart grid. A simple example would be an alert explaining that after 10pm, the subscriber's energy will be in peak saving mode, so this is a good time to run the dishwasher and dryer. Sending these types of messages is far more cost effective than managing inbound inquiries about the best time to do the laundry. Nuance estimates these notifications cost less than $1, so the economics are clearly attractive.

Of course, the range of inquiries can be much broader, and utilities need to determine just how much consumers want to hear from them.  Other examples include appointment reminders, outage notifications, and the dreaded overdue bill payment message. Sending too many or too few notifications create different sets of problems, so the right balance will take time to determine. However, at least Nuance is providing a path to address the issue, and at the same time helping utilities make the best use of their contact center agents.

There is no doubt that consumers are just starting to get educated about green and clean energy options, and ironically, one of those ways comes from the informational flyers we get in our monthly utility bills. While this means that utilities themselves are creating much of the new demand for information, the end result is still positive. If they can make it easier for subscribers to get a more efficient refrigerator, install a solar panel, learn how to use their programmable thermostat, etc., this makes for a stronger business relationship, and ultimately makes the utility a more cost effective energy provider.