SECO Energy Reduces Cost per Call by 66% with an AI Virtual Agent.

SECO Energy is a Central Florida electric cooperative serving over 220,000 homes and businesses, consistently ranking among the highest in customer satisfaction by J.D. Power.

Problem

SECO set out to modernize its contact center with AI without sacrificing customer satisfaction. 

In its search for a conversational AI partner, SECO’s top priority was to deliver a seamless customer experience alongside fast, reliable service available 24/7.

They wanted the ability to manage both simple and complex conversations, just like human agents. This way, SECO could automate a wide range of service calls with Conversational AI, while freeing up their human agents to focus on high-value conversations.

“Capacity enabled us to handle more calls at less cost and deliver exactly what our members need.”

– Gregg Morrell, Chief Corporate Services Officer, SECO Energy

Solution

To modernize its contact center, SECO Energy now uses Capacity’s AI-powered virtual agent in several applications.

First, they implemented an “Intelligent Front Door” where customers are greeted in a personalized and contextual manner, 24/7, 365 days a year. If the caller is unknown, the virtual agent can identify and authenticate them independently. The virtual agent then uses sentiment analysis to understand the caller’s intent and determines whether to resolve the request through self-service or transfer it to a live agent.

When customers remain in self-service, Capacity’s AI supports them with the following capabilities:

• Outage reporting: Gathers a variety of customer data to identify the exact home, building, or area experiencing a power outage
• Authentication: Automates customer verification and predicts the intent for the customer’s call
• Account management: Gathers data to update, change a customer’s account as requested, including stopping and transferring service

Results

Thanks to an always-available, frictionless support experience, SECO and its customers are seeing clear benefits from AI-powered self-service. With a high level of containment—meaning calls are completed by the Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) without the need for a live agent—SECO has achieved impressive outcomes, including:

• A 4.5/5 customer satisfaction (CSAT) score for the IVA that match those of SECO’s live agents
• A 66% reduction in cost per call
• 32% of all calls now successfully being handled by the IVA

These results demonstrate how AI automation is not only enhancing customer experiences, but also delivering significant operational savings and efficiency for SECO.