Eversource lights up social customer care at scale
The Challenge
When Matt Chagnon embarked on his journey with Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH) in 2007, the social media landscape was in its infancy.
Platforms like Twitter had only just begun to emerge as tools for businesses to connect with customers. Recognizing the immense potential these platforms held, especially for New Hampshire’s largest electric utility company, Chagnon dove headfirst into harnessing their power.
“We were one of the first utilities in the country to be using social media,” recalls Chagnon, now a senior social media strategist. “It exploded during the 2008 ice storm, and we've been doing it ever since, adding more platforms as they come along.”
From its inception, Eversource embraced social media as a vital tool for communicating critical public service announcements, such as storm warnings or power outage updates, and for engaging with customers to provide social care. Initially, the team managed these tasks natively and with third-party tools, but as social media grew exponentially in importance and complexity, those tools became increasingly inadequate. PSNH’s parent company, Northeast Utilities had merged with Boston-based NSTAR in 2012, eventually forming Eversource, New England’s largest energy delivery company, and creating many more social media accounts. They also began responding to customers 24/7. By 2015, Chagnon recognized the pressing need for a more robust solution to effectively navigate the evolving landscape of social media management.
The Solution
In 2015, Chagnon spearheaded the adoption of Sprinklr, a decision that solidified Eversource's position at the forefront of modern social media management and customer engagement practices.
People want to be able to ask questions, and we need to give them answers as soon as we have them — especially during a large storm restoration. With Sprinklr, we can easily set our social care team up for success with a unified triage system. It all happens automatically."
Senior Social Media Strategist, Eversource
Eversource consolidated its social media management onto the Sprinklr platform, leveraging Sprinklr Service and Sprinklr Social to provide its social care team with a unified view of all customer interactions and access to advanced analytics. Four full-time employees now handle social care —with another dozen trained on Sprinklr to fill in the gaps and offer round-the-clock customer service across approximately 20 social media accounts. The team covers three states and serves millions of customers.
Unified solutions consolidate customer interactions across channels
Customers get in touch with Eversource on social media for many reasons, from asking questions about their bill to notifying the company of a fallen tree branch on a power line. With the Unified Agent Desktop, the team can visualize all incoming messages in one place, making it easier to serve its customers quickly.
“People want to be able to ask questions, and we need to give them answers as soon as we have them, especially during a large storm restoration,” Chagnon says. “Sprinklr helps us set our social care team up for success with a unified triage system. It all happens automatically.”
Inbound Rules automatically tag and route messages in a single inbox
Sprinklr Social’s Universal Inbox further streamlines customer interactions across Eversource’s many social media accounts in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. With inbound messages directed to a single, shared inbox, Eversource’s social care team can monitor every inbound message, analyze sentiment and respond efficiently.
Inbound Rules guide this automated triage process by prioritizing and deprioritizing incoming messages based on the social channel, account or message content. For example, inquiries about bills or power issues are escalated while messages that may contain inappropriate language are tagged as “unengageable.” This helps the social care team focus on only those messages that require a response, so they can resolve the most urgent customer concerns.
Enhanced data analytics inform better social care
With Sprinklr in place, Eversource now has access to a trove of data that it can use to better understand its customers and improve its social customer service. “What I love about the Universal Inbox is that it’s searchable, and it contains everything. If I want to know how many people thanked our crews during the last storm, Sprinklr can show me the exact number, and I can compare it to previous storms,” Chagnon says. “As you can imagine, that becomes even more powerful the longer we continue using Sprinklr.”
These advanced analytics help Eversource refine its presence on social media and maintain consistent customer experiences. “Our employees live, work and play in the communities we serve. We’re all neighbors, so we take a personal approach to social media,” Chagnon explains. “Any way that we can show people that we’re neighborly is going to be a benefit for us and Sprinklr gives us the insights we need to do that.”
The Outcome
By establishing a 24/7 social customer service system, Eversource pioneered the use of social media in the utility sector.
Since moving this system to Sprinklr, the company has integrated the management of multiple social media channels onto one platform to drive comprehensive customer engagement and support.
With unified solutions, automated triaging and robust analytics capabilities, Sprinklr Service and Sprinklr Social have empowered Eversource’s small social care team to handle diverse customer inquiries and interactions at scale. “Social media is a tool for us to get our message out and talk directly to our customers,” Chagnon says. “In the early days, we could handle it all ourselves. As we’ve grown, Sprinklr is a solution that helps us do so more efficiently.”