“Digitalization is not a choice; it’s a must in order for a company to remain competitive. It has become a key enabler to adapt quickly to changing scenarios and can unlock a lot of value. We have already taken some steps in this process, but we have a lot to do in front of us. Our customers have higher and higher expectations, and digitalization can help us predict what their needs will be and offer them a better customer experience, increasing their level of empowering and engagement. ”
We are also customers in our personal life and we have high standards, so we understand our customers' wishes. Starting with our colleague who coordinated the marketing team at Enel and now leads the indirect sales team:
“Acting as "manager" of the family budget, for several years now I have digitalized almost all interactions with service providers for the entire family. Practically, I have replaced any errand or face-to-face interaction, for payment or assistance, with digital alternatives, so that I can use my time, one of the most important resources, in a more pleasant way with the family. The current period has certainly changed the consumer behavior and opened their appetite for digital services, so our focus in Enel will be the continuous development of such services in three directions: sustainability, efficiency and a close relationship with customers. ”
We know that our customers' time is precious and that they prefer it to be as easy as possible to choose an energy or gas supply offer online, to conclude a new contract online, to pay the bill online, not to wait for it in the mailbox but to receive it electronically, by email or by SMS. Here's how we meet their expectations.
What are the online services Enel customers can use?
MyEnel is the application dedicated to our customers, winner of the 2016 IAB Mixx Awards. And we have developed quite a number of features since then! If you have a MyEnel account in 2021, you can access it on your phone and computer and you can easily solve many of your monthly needs: you can submit the index displayed by your meter (if you do not already have a smart meter), pay your invoice, check your payment balance, change your contract and much more. You can activate the electronic invoice directly from here to contribute to saving forests and because it is easier to receive.
Online services without authentication, based on customer code and some other information
Online contracting and online change of contract holder for energy supply. If you want to become an Enel customer or you want to become the contract holder for the address where you live or you want to simply change the contract, you can do this directly from your computer, using the online contracting service. The process follows the usual contracting stages, from the choice of the offer, to the verification of the documents that show who you are and that you have the right to use the respective space, until the signing for the final contract. The difference is that you don't need to go to the store and instead of physically bringing the necessary documents, you upload them to the site. We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to automatically "read" your documents, then check them in the back office, and your digital signature makes the relationship official, after making sure you agree to the terms of the contract.
Online payment without authentication is a facility that helps you especially if you want to pay the electricity or gas bill for someone else. Maybe, during the pandemic, your parents wanted to protect their health and asked you to take over the payment of utility bills. We make it easy for you to take on this new responsibility in your life with a very simple process, which allows you to pay the Enel bill in just a few minutes. Interested to know what other payment methods are available? Here are some ideas:
Another service that can be activated without logging in is the electronic invoice. You have the option to receive it by e-mail, see here how easily you can do that, or via SMS - see here what steps you need to follow to receive the invoice details via SMS. And when, for some reason, you need an older electricity or gas bill that you can't find anymore, you can always request a copy, using the "invoice duplicate" online service.
These are the most common needs of our customers, but if you have a different request, we have colleagues ready to help you by e-mail or using the Enel Facebook page messaging service. Find out here what online support options are available.
Online services are being used more and more: one million customers have chosen the electronic invoice! We are celebrating during this period the achievement of this impressive number which shows that people are more and more prepared to make choices based on ease of use and environmental impact. 1,000,000 customers receive their monthly invoice in their inbox or SMS, which means they save up to 2,500 every year. This also avoids the carbon emissions generated by the delivery of physical invoices to customer addresses. This shows that our individual actions, the sustainable choices of each of us, come together to create a considerable positive impact on nature. Are you up to the challenge to increase this positive impact?
“Our role is primarily to provide simple, sustainable solutions to our customers. One million e-bill activations is a very good and encouraging result. It means that 30% of our customer base are friends of nature and this motivates us to increase the adoption of the electronic invoice by, ideally, all the other 70%. And why wouldn't it be possible? We live in the age of digitalization, in which parents and grandparents use mobile phones and the Internet to communicate, and the electronic invoice is a method to stay up to date and easily pay for the energy consumed”
“Personally, I am an ambassador of the e-bill, for ease and convenience, but also because I aspire to a sustainable lifestyle, friendly to the environment. If after the e-bill come online payments or direct debit payments, then the most frequent interactions in the relationship with the supplier can be accomplished remotely with minimum effort and saved time. I wish all our customers became confident in the digital services and operations! ”
Maybe this is the forest that our consultants have in mind when they recommend customers to switch to electronic invoicing or maybe they imagine their secret place in nature to which they are attached. In any case, they managed to be incredibly convincing! Even their coordinator praises them.
“It was important that first of all the call center consultants, who answer thousands of calls daily, know and become the promoters of the benefits that the electronic invoice brings to our clients. They were the first fans of this digital service. Their training, setting goals to promote electronic invoicing, monitoring results, competitions between teams, support and encouragement from fellow channel managers are the pillars that have supported the steady increase in the number of activations. Our best result was over 10,000 electronic invoices activated in a single month, meaning as many customers who became friends with nature. ”
Due to the acceleration of digital transformation processes and of the efforts to make these solutions known to our customers, between March and December 2020 the number of MyEnel accounts increased by almost 50% and the number of customers who downloaded the MyEnel application doubled compared to the same period in 2019.
“Gradually, we have expanded the services and products that are accessible online. What makes us proud is that, in 2020, we registered 68,000 new customers for the supply of electricity or natural gas for contracts concluded online, more than double compared to 2019. Our team has reasons to be happy! ”
The needs of our customers unite Enel departments. The need to have the electricity bill immediately at hand, on a medium that people always check, such as the e-mail box or the phone, involved, of course, a project and many successive feature improvements, for an experience as seamless as possible for our customers. The Digital Solutions department, which coordinates all the necessary developments for the company, played an important role. Some members of the project team tell us:
“We worked together with our colleagues from marketing and other departments, in order to define, develop and deliver a set of digital tools for the customers who wish to activate the e-bill. We coordinated the development of diverse points of interaction with the consumers, such as the pages dedicated to activating the electronic invoice by e-mail and SMS. This gave customers the opportunity to choose what suited them best. We also made optimisations in order to open even more ways for clients to adopt the e-bill: through self service on the digital invoice page, using their MyEnel accounts, or by directly requesting the call center or other channel consultants to activate it. The focus for us was to simplify the activation flow. To increase the internal capacity to stimulate the activation of the electronic invoice, we also made other otimizations, such as regular reporting of the number of activations, which allowed for competitions between our customer care consultants to be organized. We overcame the challenges along the way by working together in an agile way, starting from defining and delivering Minimum Viable Products and then gradualy building the tools in accordance also with the customers feedback. ”
Does digitalization leave anyone behind? There is no cause for concern for customers who are not used to new technologies, as we will always be at their service, for example through the call center and the Enel network of stores throughout the country. Our consultants are always available to give customers the best ideas about energy and natural gas offers, household products that they can buy in equal installments on the energy bill (heat systems, boilers, air conditioning), ways to save energy (by switching to LED bulbs, for example).
We have digitalized our stores as well! The programs used there are also based on OCR technologies, as well as automated processing. What do we gain by bringing digitalization to the stores? Less waiting time for clients and less routine activities for consultants, plus other benefits related to easier process management.
Digital innovation for sustainability. Globally, digital transformation is at the heart of the innovation strategy for sustainability. The concern for sustainability follows our confidence that this is the most valuable way for the development of the company and for the most useful contributions to society, with care to the natural, economic and social environment in which we live. Digitalization applies to both the services and the infrastructure operated by our group and contributes to achieving the UN's sustainable development goals 9, 11 and 12, which we are committed to supporting. Find out more in our global sustainability report.
Do you want to have access to other online services? Write to us, we are eager to find out your ideas!