A Southern Ontario Electricity Utility Handles Power Outage Call Surges with Amazon Connect
A cloud IVR in front of customer service scales automatically during outages, so callers stop hitting busy signals.
The Challenge
During a power failure, downed line or interruption, call volumes spike far above normal. The utility's on-premises phone system did not have enough trunk capacity.
Callers could not get through when they most needed information.
The on-premises system could not absorb surges.
Outage surges are rare but intense, so capacity had to flex on demand.
Our Approach
A cloud IVR deployed in November 2019 in front of the existing customer service operation.
Design
- Outage call flow
- Message templates
-
Design approved
Deploy
- Cloud IVR on Amazon Connect
- Polly outage messages
-
Live November 2019
Operate
- Staff-updated messages
- Automatic scaling
-
No phone system changes
Support
- Ongoing Serve7 support
- Message updates
-
In production today
The Solution
Serve7 put a cloud IVR on Amazon Connect in front of the utility's customer service line to absorb outage surges.
- 1 Scales with the storm Amazon Connect scales automatically when outage calls spike.
- 2 Outage details fast Custom outage messages generated with Amazon Polly text-to-speech.
- 3 Staff stay in control Staff update outage messages without changing the phone system.
Results
Callers no longer run into busy signals because of trunk limits, and customers get timely, specific outage information.
Callers get outage details quickly and hang up, leaving capacity for the calls that need a person.
About the Customer
The customer is a locally owned electricity distribution utility in Southern Ontario serving residents and businesses.
AWS services used
- Amazon Connect
- Amazon Polly
- AWS Lambda
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