Smart Grid IVR

In a world where population and resource demands are rising, utilities providers are experimenting with new technologies to help reduce energy usage and costs for consumers.  One such method in development is the smart grid.  The smart grid creates a method of remote monitoring and control of utilities allowing usage of high energy consuming devices to occur when utility prices are at their lowest rates during a given day.  Likewise, it would remotely turn off selected appliances at peak times to reduce energy demands and save the consumer money.  As smart grid systems are tested and implemented, there will be an unavoidable increase in the communication between consumers and utility companies.  IVR is poised to be the primary tool for such communications.

Jon Arnold of Intelligent Communications Partners recently wrote about Nuance Communications' efforts to deal with what will undoubtedly be an influx of inquiries by consumers.  Of course utilities have relied on IVR in their call centers as a means to reduce the load on human operators.  However, changes to utility grids will, at least initially, elicit more calls and issues from consumers.  Nuance has been hard at work on an outbound IVR service called Proactive Notifications designed to inform customers about the many topics related to the smart grid.  For example, informational alerts would be sent explaining downtime for certain appliances during peak energy periods.  However, there is a fine line between too little and too much information.  As a result, much work is being put into determining what and how much consumers will want to know about the smart grid.  This way, inbound calls will not increase so much that the call center is unable to handle the influx.  Implementation of smart grids are in early development stages in most parts of the world, but as they become more of a reality, IVR will surely play a significant role.