C3 Energy has released the next generation of its C3.ai Customer Analytics application suite with significant enhancements that advance interactions between utilities and energy retailers across residential‚ commercial‚ and large enterprise customers on one fully integrated platform. With this release‚ utilities and energy retailers can provide their customers a compelling self-service user experience with higher levels of transparency‚ simplicity‚ and control than ever before – resulting in increased customer satisfaction‚ loyalty‚ and participation in utility-sponsored programs.

“By transitioning from call center and paper-based communications to a comprehensive digital customer experience‚ utilities can develop cost-effective‚ targeted engagement strategies that increase participation in utility-sponsored programs‚ achieve energy efficiency targets‚ and improve customer satisfaction‚ acquisition‚ and retention‚” said Ed Abbo‚ C3 Energy President and Chief Technology Officer. “C3 Energy’s software applications bring together data integration‚ predictive analytics using machine learning techniques‚ and customer engagement on a single operating platform to generate insightful and‚ just as importantly‚ actionable outcomes.”

C3.ai Customer Analytics Enhancements

With this announcement‚ 10 new modules are now available for C3 Residential‚ C3 Commercial‚ and C3 Enterprise applications:

  • Revamped user experience eases customer engagement – now with three clicks or less. More intuitive navigation‚ improved user task flows‚ and responsive design allow customers to interact with utilities and complete major actions in less than one minute.
  • Predictive billing analytics allow proactive energy monitoring and spend management. With support for billing prediction and alerting‚ customers can see what their bill is likely to be well before the billing cycle ends and be alerted to rising energy usage‚ projected costs‚ and tips to improve energy performance. Individually-tailored reports and enhanced charting give customers an accurate view of bill charges and contributing factors.
  • Three new advanced analytic tools drive customer engagement and more effective energy efficiency programs.
Robust and scalable energy disaggregation algorithms deliver optimally tailored energy efficiency recommendations to customers across millions of homes and businesses. Built by world-leading experts at C3 Energy‚ the algorithms have achieved industry and academic benchmarks of 98 percent accuracy levels using 15-minute smart meter data‚ compared to “ground truth” where sensors were put on appliances and equipment to measure accuracy of predictions.

With its universal rate engine C3 Energy now supports all rate types with intuitive visualizations‚ enabling enhanced analytic outputs‚ charts‚ and insights. This gives users the ability to understand rate-specific usage and bill components‚ and to select the best rates for their needs. The first deployment of this feature was for a leading utility‚ enabling the utility to manage all rates including time of use‚ net metering‚ generation‚ capacity reservation‚ demand charges‚ and demand response events.

Enhanced energy efficiency project integrations enable C3 Residential‚ C3 Commercial‚ and C3 Enterprise to surface all projects and actions a customer has completed in the past‚ such as rebates applied for‚ with the ability to set goals and track progress. Customers also gain access to commissioned audit reports‚ ENERGY STAR score management‚ and Green Button access to energy use data‚ creating a comprehensive picture of their usage and energy efficiency efforts.

  • Pre-built loyalty programs make it fast and easy for utilities and energy providers to allow their customers to earn points for taking actions like enrolling in energy-efficiency programs or purchasing products and services‚ and automatically redeem their points at 300 brands across major retail verticals.
  • Advanced visualization features enable power users – such as facility managers‚ franchise owners‚ residential landlords‚ and other customers handling multiple buildings and disparate groups of meters – to analyze and download their energy usage and costs at the level of individual meters‚ accounts‚ or user-defined groupings of meters and accounts.
    Native mobile iOS and Android applications are now integrated with the C3 Energy platform‚ enabling utilities to use a white-label application to engage their customer for a range of common services – including bill pay‚ outage communication‚ reporting‚ and energy usage and efficiency. These modules can be part of a standalone application or widgets integrated into an existing utility application.

Pre-built integration with MarketoTM‚ an engagement marketing platform‚ puts messages‚ alerts‚ and notifications linked to predictive analytics in the hands of the end customer‚ as controlled by the utility or retailer. This makes it even easier to seamlessly deliver relevant information to the right customer on the right device at the right time.
Integration with C3 Energy Intelligence for ad hoc predictive analytics gives users in any business function and of all experience levels access to a web-based interface through which they can discover insights from all their data using compelling visualizations in order to better understand their customers‚ conduct internal analysis‚ and inform marketing campaigns.

The new release of C3.ai Customer Analytics applications first went live this month at AEP‚ Eversource Energy‚ and Westar. Eversource‚ operator of New England’s largest utility system with 3.6 million customers‚ deployed the applications across two states to date in order to redefine the engagement experience for its residential‚ small commercial‚ and large commercial customers and deliver customized insights across the right channels.

View the full article on the Transmission & Distribution website.