BAU: helping our customers cut through the jargon and work smarter

Like many industries, the energy sector has its fair share of abbreviations and acronyms: MHHS, SMETS, BSUoS, the list goes on.

It can be very confusing, even for those who work in the sector. It can also increase the time and cost to serve customers for energy providers. This is why we are trying to do things differently with our Energy Expert platform.

Energy Expert is Procode’s scalable, sophisticated, and innovative platform for exchanging messages between you and third parties for processes such as registrations, terminations, validated readings and more.

Where do abbreviations come into this? What Energy Expert will do is allow the user to see what’s “under the hood” with data flows. It doesn’t just present the information as a code, abbreviation, or acronym, which you usually get with a lot of competitors’ solutions.

Systems like these typically manage those data flows in files in CSV formats – they are not particularly easy on the eye, or accessible for a standard user. So, for example, an S42 is what you would send out to request to acquire a meter onto your supply. Rather than saying S42, Energy Expert tells you exactly what that means, and tells you the meaning of each data item which makes up these huge files. Previously, it could take you an hour to understand a single file that now takes just a couple of seconds.

As well as cutting out the industry jargon, Energy Expert is highly automated, resulting in significantly reduced manual handling time.

Energy Expert automatically splits the process into separate orchestrations to allow for differrent industry responses including acceptance, rejection and objection, and manages the necessary responses without any manual interference. Each data flow is validated against the industry final specification and any discrepancies are highlighted to the user.

I originally came from a customer service background in the energy market and absolutely understand the need for automated workflows and to ensure user interaction is minimal. Building systems that use as few clicks as possible to do what you need to do is always at the forefront of our minds.

Our focus on user experience is vital in keeping our customers happy. One popular feature is the traffic light system we use on our dashboard so that users can quickly see what needs urgent attention.

Already, several energy companies use Procode’s Energy Expert as their messaging platform. Energy Expert is a product that is never one-size-fits all. Although customers have access through the web application, some choose to install the platform on their own systems while other customers choose to access the system solely though APIs.

At Procode we live by something called specification by example, a set of rules around how to best capture requirements from a customer. I have a hard copy of the book by Gojko Adzic on my desk as I write this.

We go through specific examples and customer journeys to make sure that the solution we provide meets their requirements.

As a result of this approach, more and more energy companies are implementing Energy Expert and many value the easy integration between the platform and other solutions, such as third-party customer relationship management (CRM) systems and other Procode solutions, such as our Gas Shipping Platform.

As always, once implemented, Energy Expert does not stay the same or stagnate. We deliver new features, enhancements, and bug fixes on average every two weeks to ensure our product is continuously improving.

When we release something new in our test environment, we provide release notes, and our customers can test that with their own systems. We make sure they are happy before we release anything into production.

I know I said that Procode is trying to cut through the industry jargon and acronyms, but I like to think of this as BAU. Not business as usual but business as unusual – we stand above the way our competitors make things so complicated.

If you would like to learn about implementing Energy Expert in your own business, call us on +44 1202 298444 or email us at hello@procode.email