Outages, billing complexity, field service coordination, payment difficulty, and storm response define utility CX. U.S. electricity customers averaged 11 hoursU.S. Energy Information Administration 2025 without power in 2024, most of it from major storms, so utility contact centers must prepare for crisis while delivering on everyday service. This is the vertical-specific intelligence layer for electric, gas, water, municipal, renewable, and competitive energy.
11 hoursU.S. Energy Information Administration 2025
Average time without power per U.S. electricity customer in 2024
80%U.S. Energy Information Administration 2025
Of hours without power in 2024 came from major events such as hurricanes
about two hoursU.S. Energy Information Administration 2025
Without power per customer each year from routine interruptions, outside major events
1.5U.S. Energy Information Administration 2025
Power interruptions per customer in 2024
A large investor-owned electric utility and a small municipal water utility have fundamentally different regulatory, operational, and CX requirements. Monopoly vs competitive, regulated vs market-driven, storm-exposed vs weather-independent.
Major events such as hurricanes caused 80%U.S. Energy Information Administration 2025 of U.S. customer hours without power in 2024, and Hurricane Helene alone cut power to 5.9 million customersU.S. Energy Information Administration 2025. A major storm knocks out power for 200,000 customers, and many of them call to report the outage and ask when power will be back.example Without proactive outage notifications, IVR storm messaging, and automated restoration updates, the queue fills faster than any staffing plan can respond, and agents can only say 'we're aware of the outage and working to restore service.'
Demand charges, tiered rates, time-of-use pricing, fuel surcharges, regulatory riders, and taxes create bills that many customers, and some agents, struggle to explain. A billing call can spend 3 to 5 minutesplanning assumption · test yours on interpreting the bill before it reaches the actual concern.
A customer calls about a downed power line. The contact center creates a ticket. A crew is dispatched. The customer receives no updates, so they call back 2 hours later, 4 hours later and again the next morning.example The field operations system and the contact center system don't share real-time status.
Some customers cannot pay their full bill, and utilities cannot simply disconnect them: disconnection rules, winter moratoriums, and medical protection protocols create complex decision trees. Agents handling payment difficulty need social services training alongside billing system skills.
Contact tends to start with an outage, a high bill or a service problem, with few routine positive moments in between. Each interaction therefore weighs heavily in how the customer sees the utility.
Layer 1 (Data Access) carries disproportionate weight because utility CX depends on real-time operational data, outage status, meter readings, field crew location, that lives in OMS, MDMS, and GIS systems the contact center rarely integrates deeply with.
Measure and govern
J.D. Power satisfaction tracking, outage communication effectiveness, billing complaint root cause, and regulatory compliance reporting.
Vendors in this layer include NICE Nexidia, Verint, J.D. Power, Qualtrics.
Route the work
Storm IVR intercepts, outage vs billing vs service routing, priority routing for gas leaks and safety, and field dispatch coordination.
Vendors in this layer include Genesys, NICE CXone, Cisco, Avaya.
Hold the conversation
Proactive outage notifications, bill explanation tools, payment arrangement portals, and energy efficiency program enrollment.
Vendors in this layer include Notifi (Questline), Kubra, Sprinklr, Ada.
Decide the next step
Outage status bots with real-time OMS data, bill explanation bots, payment arrangement bots, and move/start/stop service automation.
Vendors in this layer include Cognigy, Ada, Google CCAI, utility-specific bots.
Set the rules
Disconnection moratorium rules, medical baseline protections, CARE/LIHEAP payment assistance, PII/CPNI, and rate case compliance.
Vendors in this layer include PUC compliance, custom regulatory, Oracle Utilities.
Do the work
Service start/stop/transfer, outage management, field dispatch, payment arrangement, and energy efficiency program enrollment workflows.
Vendors in this layer include Oracle Utilities, SAP IS-U, Itron, ServiceNow.
Know the customer
CIS (customer information system), OMS (outage management), MDMS (meter data), GIS (network mapping), and field service management.
Vendors in this layer include Oracle CC&B, SAP IS-U, Itron, Salesforce Energy.
The one published utilities figure is SQM Group's first contact resolution for energy call centers, close to its all-industry average. No free public source reports the other metrics for utility contact centers; measure yours with the linked tools. Each all-industry figure is labelled with what it measures.
| Metric | Utilities | All industries | What drives it |
|---|---|---|---|
| CSAT | No public benchmark | 78%SQM Group 2023 | Moves with outage communication and with bill increases customers cannot control |
| FCR | 70%SQM Group 2026 | 71%SQM Group 2026 | Outages and field work often need a follow-up the agent cannot close on the call |
| AHT | No public benchmarkmeasure yours | 11:37SQM Group 2025 | Bill explanations and payment difficulty conversations run long; outage reports are short |
| Abandon Rate | No public benchmarkmeasure yours | 6%SQM Group 2023 | Driven by staffing against storm and high-bill peaks |
| Attrition | No public benchmarkmeasure yours | 34%SQM Group 2025 | Moves with pay, schedule stability and the strain of storm and collections work |
| Storm Volume | No public benchmarkmeasure yours | Not applicable | Set by storm size, outage duration and how well proactive notifications answer the question before customers call |
Named here, A to Z, as a place to start. The list carries no ranking or recommendation. What the research says about each researched platform is on its profile.
Not yet researched under the current method.
Every figure on this page is a published figure checked on the publisher's own page, a labelled planning assumption you can test with your own numbers, a worked example, or marked as having no public benchmark.
OMS integration, storm routing, PUC compliance, and CIS connectivity change which platforms are viable. We can help you build a shortlist weighted for your utility type: IOU, municipal, co-op, or competitive retail.