Avangrid Wins Award for Achievement in Residential Customer Experience by E Source

Barchart · 10/15 12:10

Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), a leading sustainable energy company and member of the Iberdrola Group, today announced that it was the winner of the E Source award for Achievement in Residential Customer Experience (CX). This prestigious award was presented to Avangrid representatives at the Utility Awards Ceremony held by E Source on Thursday at the closing session of Forum 2024, the 37th edition of E Source’s annual event held from October 8-10 in Denver, Colorado. Judges recognized the Avangrid CX and Digital Center of Excellence (CoE) for reaching substantial and positive outcomes for customers.

“We are honored to have received this award, which further validates Avangrid’s commitment to our customers,” said Pedro Azagra, Avangrid CEO. “Our CX and Digital CoE is helping us engage with and serve our communities more efficiently and at greater scale with higher customer satisfaction. The talented professionals leading this effort are leveraging the latest technologies to anticipate challenges and resolve them quickly, leading to improved experiences for our customers in Connecticut, Maine, New York, and Massachusetts.”

The CX and Digital CoE is dedicated rethinking the end-to-end experience by designing it through the lens of Avangrid’s customers. The cross-functional unit consolidates customer experience strategy, digital product development, marketing, research, and end-to-end journey redesign. This ensures a seamless and consistent experience across all touchpoints, from the mobile app to energy management tools and core operational customer experience improvements. By placing customer and employee needs at the heart of this transformation, Avangrid fosters a deeper understanding and culture of continuous improvement.

Congratulating Avangrid for winning this award, Filomena Gogel, President, Research and Advisory at E Source, said, “Customer satisfaction is increasingly becoming central to how utilities measure their success and effectiveness. We are delighted to recognize Avangrid's customer excellence with the Residential Customer Experience Award. It's fantastic to see effort and intention behind their Customer Experience and Digital Center of Excellence. This honor highlights their capacity for innovation and dedication to providing exceptional customer experiences.”

With over 80 percent of customer interactions occurring through digital channels, the CX and Digital COE is mission critical to achieving Avangrid’s customer satisfaction goals. It has delivered better customer experiences through digital journeys, which is making a meaningful difference to customer satisfaction. For example, it has contributed to reducing the hold time for customers seeking a new connection in New York, improving the Net Promoter Score for service response to customers moving in or out by 200 percent, boosting the number of customers enrolled in e-billing, and increasing enrollment in Outage Alerts by 50 percent. Similar initiatives have been deployed with compelling results across Maine, Connecticut, and Massachusetts where the company has seen a transformation in the customer experience for power restoration, moving homes, and payments processes.

“We are proud to have earned this recognition, which proves that breaking down barriers between functions and teams results in business transformation and improves the customer experience,” said Craig Paterson, senior director of customer experience and digital transformation at Avangrid. “Traditional utility organizational structures are ill-equipped to respond to accelerating challenges utilities face, including those posed by growing customer expectations, aging infrastructure and climate change, or to fully leverage opportunities emerging from innovations in technology. We are now better positioned to anticipate and react in this new environment and creating a blueprint for how to deliver safe and reliable energy in a rapidly changing world through a compelling customer experience.”

Judges evaluated award submissions based on four categories: unique approaches and creativity, whether the project affected multiple areas of the organization, metrics and results, and overall impression. E Source is a utilities-focused consulting, research, and data science company.

About Avangrid: Avangrid, Inc. (NYSE: AGR) aspires to be the leading sustainable energy company in the United States. Headquartered in Orange, CT with approximately $45 billion in assets and operations in 24 U.S. states, Avangrid has two primary lines of business: networks and renewables. Through its networks business, Avangrid owns and operates eight electric and natural gas utilities, serving more than 3.3 million customers in New York and New England. Through its renewables business, Avangrid owns and operates a portfolio of renewable energy generation facilities across the United States. Avangrid employs approximately 8,000 people and has been recognized by JUST Capital as one of the JUST 100 companies – a ranking of America’s best corporate citizens – in 2024 for the fourth consecutive year. In 2024, Avangrid ranked first among utilities and 12 overall. The company supports the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals and was named among the World’s Most Ethical Companies in 2024 for the sixth consecutive year by the Ethisphere Institute. Avangrid is a member of the group of companies controlled by Iberdrola, S.A. For more information, visit www.avangrid.com.