Energy giant gives firms online access to consumption data

Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) is deploying Information Builders' Webfocus business intelligence (BI) technology across its business in a bid to provide customers with detailed data on their energy consumption.

The technology will allow it to publish consumption reports for its 420,000 business customers, and these reports will allow customers to assess and manage their energy use.

Dubbed Business Energy Centre (BEC), the service means customers will no longer have to email or call in to request information about consumption.

"The old manual service was labour intensive. We wanted to differentiate ourselves from the competition, and provide better services to our customers by giving them presentable and engaging data," said Phil Collard, SSE's head of business and operational support.

The BEC will be a self-service customer portal providing usage data in addition to next-day billing.

The portal will be cheaper to run than the old service, but Collard was unable to say how much the company would save.

As well as cutting costs, Collard said the new service should also help SSE to attract new customers and improve customer retention.

Collard also said that social media tools would be made available to customers "as soon as possible".

He said that customers are becoming more demanding and said that for SSE to be able to bid for larger customers it had to make services such as these available.

The project is likely to take 18 months to complete.

SSE's business customers range from small companies to major enterprises like Marks & Spencer.

SSE is also looking into introducing transaction software for smartphones and tablets.