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Reliable contact center solutions for utility service environments

In energy and utilities, customer service means more. Bucher + Suter helps providers build service solutions that hold up, even under high volume.

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Customer Story: Modernizing CX with AI Voice

enersuisse: In production with AI voice four months from kickoff

enersuisse supplies electricity and runs customer service operations for 800,000 end customers across the Swiss energy market. Facing increasing demand and evolving issue variety, they needed to upgrade from a classic IVR menu.

Working with Bucher + Suter, enersuisse implemented an AI voice agent that understands Swiss German across dialects, resolves billing and payment inquiries in self-service, and routes the rest to staff with customer context intact. The system went into stable production four months after kickoff and now handles a meaningful share of frontline volume.

Sue Ajdini, Head of Excellence, enersuisse

"On the topic of invoice extensions and paying in installments, customers are even relieved to explain to an AI rather than a person that they cannot pay their bill right now."

6.55 out of 7
Average Customer Effort Score for callers who complete a self-service journey

What an energy or utility contact center has to be built for

These conditions are normal in energy and utilities. Whether they become a problem depends on the operating model underneath.

Inquiry volume spikes the moment something happens upstream

An outage, a price change, a regulatory letter going out: the contact center sees the impact within minutes. Absorbing that load without service slipping for everyone else is a design requirement, not a reaction.

Variety of inquiries keeps widening, faster than knowledge can keep up

Billing and metering questions alongside smart meter rollouts, dynamic pricing, and renewable supply options. Keeping answers consistent depends on how much the system puts in front of the agent.

Answers live in a different system than the conversation

Customer data, billing, contracts, meter records, and supply information are spread across the systems your operation depends on. Resolution speed comes down to whether those systems reach the agent inside one workspace.

Onboarding new staff takes longer than your turnover cycle allows

New agents need to learn the systems, products, and conversation patterns that experienced staff handle without thinking. How fast they get there depends on how much the workspace carries for them.

Bucher + Suter: service that performs under pressure

We've been working in large-scale, high-volume utility service environments for more than two decades. With Bucher + Suter:

#01

Customers reach you on the channel they expect

Voice, digital channels, and self-service work as one operation.

#02

Information stays consistent under pressure

Outages, price changes, and external events don't fragment what customers hear from different agents or channels.

#03

Routine inquiries resolve in self-service channels

AI and self-service take on the inquiries they handle reliably, without pushing customers into dead ends.

#04

Complex cases reach the right person, in context

Cases arrive with customer history, account context, and the reason for the call already loaded.

• Designed to work with your existing operations
• AI and automation as pressure relief, not people replacement
• Greater supervisor visibility
• Strong post-go-live support

Case Study: Turning Contact Center Optimization into Measurable ROI

Republic Services: $500,000+ annual return on investment

Republic Services runs one of the largest service operations of its kind in North America, supporting commercial, industrial, municipal, and residential customers across the country. The contact center has to keep pace with both the volume and the variety of customer inquiries.

Working with Bucher + Suter, Republic Services optimized its contact center for faster time to resolution, lower wait times, and a service environment that supports agents through the day. The financial outcome was an annual return on investment of more than $500,000, alongside a measurable lift in customer satisfaction.

Start where pressure is highest

We'll work from the inquiries you can predict, the spikes you can't, and the systems that need to feed both.