Utilities face mounting pressure to maintain reliable service amid extreme weather events, wildfires, and aging infrastructure challenges. With an 83% increase in weather-related outages (U.S. Department of Energy) and 65% of customers frustrated by impersonal utility communications (J.D. Power 2023), the stakes for effective crisis management have never been higher, facing the risk of eroding customer trust and operational efficiency if they opt not to transform their strategies across all touchpoints.
Take the 2021 Texas winter storm that exposed critical gaps in utility communication systems. 4.5 million customers were left without power and updates; residents faced dangerous uncertainty about outage durations and restoration efforts. What could have been done:
Utilities need to rebuild trust during these crises moments, and replace fragmented communication with real-time, unified systems that prioritize customer safety and operational efficiency.
It is due to these types of events that Message Broadcast set to design a solution such as Conversations.
Conversations by Message Broadcast redefines utility customer response by merging speed with precision. The platform’s no-code capabilities enable teams to create templated workflows easily and deploy them omni-channel quickly when they are needed. This is critical during rapidly evolving events like wildfires or hurricanes.
AI-Driven Innovation
While maintaining core functionality, Conversations is continually evolving including advanced capabilities with additional AI integration:
The traditional one-size-fits-all messaging costs utilities $8.50 per failed interaction. The demand for hyper-personalized, proactive communication requires a frequency of interactions that demands a new level of customer care that traditional methods can’t do alone. Conversations’ customer-centric architecture fosters trust and counters this issue with its two-way dialogue and preferred channel alerts, as well as self-service capabilities. Enabling personalized communication at scale.
With its unlimited scalability, Conversations also ensures that utilities can maintain this level of personalized, real-time communication even during large-scale events, transforming crisis management and customer engagement in the utility industry.
Message Broadcast’s Conversations, designed for utilities, to empower them with seamless customer dialogue at scale. Allowing utilities with proactive outreach to crisis management.
Key features include:
Conversations enables utilities to engage with customers through their preferred communication methods:
This approach ensures consistent messaging across all touchpoints, enhancing communication effectiveness during both routine operations and crisis situations.
In this high-stakes environment, utilities are realizing that generic, one-size-fits-all messaging is not just ineffective—it’s dangerous and costly.
The 2021 Texas winter storm demonstrated how outdated communication systems can leave millions of customers in the dark, both literally and figuratively.
By combining scalable infrastructure with intelligent automation through solutions such as Conversations, utilities can now manage crisis communications more effectively, ensuring customers stay informed and connected throughout any outage, planned or unplanned:
Preventing crisis escalation:
Optimizing resources:
Future-proofing operations:
U.S. Department of Energy. (n.d.). Grid Modernization Initiative (GMI). Retrieved from https://www.energy.gov/gmi/grid-modernization-initiative
J.D. Power. (2023). Utilities Industry Insights. Retrieved from https://www.jdpower.com/business/utilities
Platoff, E., & Douglas, E. (2021, February 19). Texas officials promised the power would stay on during the winter storm. It didn’t. The Texas Tribune. Retrieved from https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/19/texas-emergency-communication-power-outages/
J.D. Power. (2024). 2024 U.S. Utility Digital Experience Study. Retrieved from https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2024-us-utility-digital-experience-study
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