Integration: The Foundation for New Experiences with Embasa
Key Takeaways
- Integration is an essential pillar of the new customer self-service portal.
The success of Embasa's new customer portal is because of key system integrations. The company was able to save R$100,000 (about $20,000/month) immediately on outsourced services. Additionally, Embasa optimized internal teams, making new services available and integrating 50 existing services into the new portal. And it doesn't stop there: Embasa increased monthly processed requests by 750%, improving response times. - A new age of customer experience.
Previously, 50% of requests initiated in the virtual customer self-service portal were abandoned because the process wasn't seamless. Now, customers experience a faster, more intuitive, and responsive journey that includes accessibility features. - Increased efficiency.
Business teams now have more autonomy to manage content in both the customer self-service portal and the institutional portal. Simply updating a text and/or image, which used to take 5-7 days, can now be done in minutes by the Communications and Relations teams themselves.
Background
A New Age of Innovation
Where Everything Began
Unprecedented Results
Here are some of the major updates Embasa has experienced:
- Calls coming in through the digital service, which before were analyzed manually by an outsourced team, are now processed automatically, resulting in a monthly savings of approximately 100,000 reais (about $20,000) and the optimization of the customer service team's time.
- Due to a lack of required documentation, 50% of requests initiated were either abandoned or canceled. Today, customers and employees can find information easily because of a much shorter and more intuitive journey that uses conditional rules for opening processes, ultimately saving users time.
- The login, which previously used a residential registration number, is now unique by CPF (Individual Taxpayer Identification.) This gives customers a big-picture view, where they can manage property registrations in a single place, check their history of service requests and payments over the last 12 months, bill amounts, monthly water consumption, and more.
- Both the institutional website and the virtual customer self-service portal depended 100% on IT to update any content, which could take up to a week. The Department of Communications now has more flexibility and autonomy to manage and change content in minutes on both sites, and IT only has to provide operational support.
- Customized experiences based on the property location and real-time alerts on scheduled water shortages and estimated regularization.
- Development of more than 35 APIs that have made it possible to customize customer experiences.
- The new service portal is 100% integrated with other technologies and in compliance with the LGPD (Brazilian General Data Protection Act/Law), now offering more than 50 services digitally to customers that did not exist with the previous technology—and more security.
- A 750% increase in monthly service processing and a reduction in the time taken to resolve requests thanks to the newly-established integration programs.
- 100% responsive website with accessibility features and a pound reader, ensuring greater safety and ease of use for customers.
Next Steps
The company also plans to introduce three new services:
- Video appointment services: Embasa wants to make it possible to schedule appointments through the portal, offering convenience and direct communication for the user.
- Real-time service via chat and co-browsing: This will help customers who are seeking to understand how to use the portal better.
- Virtual tour of the water path: Using virtual reality, customers will be able to understand the entire water path, from collection to consumption, granting a clear view of the water treatment process.