Adapting universal service agents for an evolving energy sector

The universal customer service agent model promises a more streamlined, efficient, and customer-centric approach, but it’s no easy feat to implement.

These agents thrive on juggling a wide range of responsibilities - from tariff queries and technical support to regulatory advice - while maintaining empathy and accuracy.

With the energy sector undergoing a major shift through decarbonisation, digitalisation, and decentralisation, the challenges of implementing such a model are only intensifying. Legacy systems, regulatory complexity, evolving customer needs, and financial pressures are just a few of the hurdles energy companies face today, but the future introduces even more complexity, from the rise of further renewables technologies to dynamic tariffs.

To adapt to these changes and truly make the universal agent model work in 2025 and beyond, companies need to think strategically. Success lies in best practice approaches for upskilling agents, integrating new knowledge, and leveraging technologies like AI and automation. By addressing emerging complexities head-on, companies have the opportunity to not only meet customer expectations, but also gain a critical competitive edge.

Significant challenges remain with the universal agent model

Despite the universal agent model being increasingly common in customer service, many significant challenges remain:

• Meeting diverse customer needs: Universal agents can often handle everything from billing and smart meter queries, to technical troubleshooting and regulatory-specific guidance, requiring continuous training to keep up with evolving demands.
• Integration with legacy systems: Siloed billing, metering, and management systems hinder service, forcing universal agents to rely on escalations, system changes, and back-office support.
• Managing financial pressures: The energy price cap squeezes profit margins, pushing suppliers towards short-term cost-saving measures, that can return an in-year ROI, but lead to more disruption and complexity for front line staff.
• Building trust and satisfaction: Low customer trust, worsened by market instability, forces agents to look for a delicate balance between efficiency and the empathetic service customers expect.

New complexities are emerging – Is your strategic plan ready?

As we shift towards a cleaner, smarter energy sector, new complexities are emerging, requiring careful strategic planning:

• Support for renewables: As renewable energy adoption grows, universal agents should be equipped to handle queries on solar panels, heat pumps, battery storage, and Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) or Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) schemes. Agents may even need to provide technical support on these systems once live.
• EV integration: The shift to EVs demands agent expertise on home chargers, public networks, and EV-friendly tariffs, tackling complex technical and billing-related queries.
• Dynamic tariffs and smart energy: Smart meters and time-of-use tariffs add complexity, requiring agents to explain dynamic pricing structures, assist with smart home integration, and provide energy-saving advice tailored to individual consumption patterns.
• Decentralised energy models: The rise of community energy schemes and localised grid systems will increase the demand for support on shared energy ownership, peer-to-peer trading, and local grid stability.

Opportunities to adapt the model, and gain a competitive advantage

To stay ahead, energy suppliers must proactively refine their approach to universal agents, focusing on the areas below.

Provide comprehensive training for agents and leaders

Invest in modular, ongoing training to keep universal agents up to date with regulatory changes, technical developments, and customer engagement strategies. This should include hands-on experience with new technologies like EVs and smart home devices.

Additionally, it’s never been more important to invest in leadership skills, to give clear direction, support and vision to teams as more complexity arrives. Focus on establishing what excellent leadership looks like, reviewing performance together, and helping to address underperformance. Creating a positive and empowered environment 
can significantly improve productivity, while reducing sickness/churn and minimising the longer-term costs of re-hiring and training.

Optimise processes with AI, automation and intelligent systems

AI can be a key tool in helping alleviate pressure on the universal agent model, but reviewing and refining processes in advance is essential. With a streamlined workflow, AI can be used to supplement humans and automate routine tasks like payment confirmations, while providing predictive insights, allowing universal agents to dedicate more time to complex or sensitive queries.

Simplifying processes reduces strain on agents, preventing burnout while improving customer satisfaction. Automating low-complexity, high-volume tasks can significantly enhance efficiency, such as pre-populating account information before calls begin, running troubleshooting on common issues, triggering rebills, and starting longer processes like Change of Supplier. Even partial automation, which addresses specific elements of a task without replacing the entire process, can free agents to focus on building stronger customer relationships, delivering better quality calls, and achieving improving broader metrics such as NPS, first call resolution, and customer loyalty.

Equipping agents with AI tools requires significant investment, robust data structures, and team re-education, often with long-term payback periods (not ‘in year’ as is the goal for many). A practical starting point is deploying targeted AI solutions to identify real-time patterns and errors, offering proactive solutions to enhance conversation quality.

Other examples include AI that reviews local process documentation in real time, to guide agents toward accurate answers. We also see cases where predictive analysis is provided based on customer history to enhance advice, or automated alerts are generated for high-risk issues like compliance requirements.

When combined with partial or full process automation, these tools save time and boost efficiency, but investing in understanding where to deploy is just as important as the system itself.

Ensure any existing knowledge management system is delivering value

Agents need an easy and quick to use support tool for answers to questions they may not immediately have. The universal agent model puts further pressure on equipping agents with real-time access to a centralised knowledge base, integrating information from billing, technical support, and regulatory compliance systems. This ensures agents can provide accurate, efficient responses, without relying heavily on escalations, which adds call time and can result in incremental call volumes or back-office work.

Regular agent feedback, as well as call data analysis and mapping, can enable the most relevant views to be created and/or updated. This can then guide investment decisions around improving your knowledge management system, if these most common queries aren’t easily referenced by agents.

Enable simple access to specialist back-up support

While universal agents handle general queries, there will always be some exceptions where they require access to technical specialists for more complex issues. Doing this effectively can reduce the need for callbacks, back-office work and improve overall customer experience.

There are various ways to ensure this via explicit operating model designs that map specific roles to contact centre support, or when immediate resolution is not possible, having specific hand-off processes for efficient exception handling with clear, reliable timescales on customer responses.

Adopt customer-centric communication tools

Existing CRM systems must enable relevant customer information to be stored in one ‘easy-to-reach’ location for universal agents. It should prompt agents based on customers’ past behaviour and preferences, eliminating the need for excessive scrolling and searching, which can result in passive listening to customers. Providing exceptional support for the vulnerable is critical, requiring clear visibility and an understanding of each customer’s unique circumstances to simplify the universal agent’s role.

Justifying a CRM investment can be complex, but when it can also open the door to broader AI opportunities, regulatory risk reduction and process improvements, there’s huge value to be created. Whilst there are a vast array of systems to select from depending on business needs, making the case to invest can be the most difficult part, and getting support on understanding all the downstream benefits is usually key to progressing.

Key questions to reflect on your approach

• How well-equipped are your training programs to address the evolving demands of universal agents, including hands-on experience with new technologies and leadership development for managing complexity?
• Are your current processes streamlined enough to fully leverage AI and automation, and have you identified specific areas where partial or full automation can deliver immediate value to both agents and customers?
• Can your knowledge management system effectively integrate critical information and provide agents with real-time access to tools that enable efficient, accurate responses, reducing dependency on escalations?
• Is your operating model able to provide efficient and effective routes for raising exceptions, enabling reliable timescales to be given to customers for responses?
• Does your existing CRM system really enable the relevant information to be kept in one ‘easy to reach’ place for universal agents?

By leaning into these future challenges now, energy companies can be on the front foot with their universal customer service agents to deliver exceptional, wide-ranging support. With further complexities continuing to arrive in the energy market, playing catchup in this area could easily become a vast and difficult task.

At BFY, we help suppliers to transform customer service, recently supporting a major energy supplier in streamlining processes, optimising systems, and enhancing leadership. This led to a +34 NPS boost, 12% higher resolution rates, 12-day faster query resolution, and a 63% leadership capability uplift.

For more on how you can enhance service, and prepare for future challenges impacting universal agents, contact Jonathan Paton.