30% Increase in Operational Effectiveness: Transforming the Global Operating Model for a Leading U.S. Energy Provider with Intelligent Automation

Industry: Energy and Utilities | Services: Automation, Digital CX, Digital Operations

Client Overview

The client is a recognized leader in delivering clean, efficient, and diverse energy solutions across the United States, with a growing customer base exceeding 1.5 million.

The Challenge

Scaling Operational Agility Amid Surging Demand and Legacy Constraints

As a major U.S.-based energy provider with over 1.5 million customers, the client faced intensifying pressure to deliver responsive, reliable service amidst rapid growth. Increasing volumes of customer requests for new connections, transfers, and billing adjustments began to overwhelm their existing systems. The lack of self-service capabilities and fragmented workflows created significant operational friction, driving up cost-to-serve, eroding customer satisfaction, and contributing to a rising backlog in financial transactions, particularly unapplied cash.

Frontline agents grappled with inconsistent data access, limited real-time support tools, and siloed back-office functions that hindered seamless resolution. Additionally, the collections function, particularly for Spanish-speaking customers, lacked the digital capabilities needed to support personalized, multilingual engagement, further complicating the customer experience.

The client recognized the urgent need to reimagine its operating model, break down functional silos, and implement automation-led efficiencies to drive both top-line service performance and bottom-line savings. However, such transformation had to occur with minimal disruption to core service operations and measurable ROI.

Sutherland Solution

Integrated Operational Redesign Powered by Analytics, Automation, and Real-Time AI

Sutherland partnered with the client to architect and deliver a holistic transformation roadmap designed to modernize operations, improve responsiveness, and optimize financial workflows. The approach brought together process intelligence, automation, language AI, and global delivery to create a scalable, digitally enabled service infrastructure.

Key solution elements included:

1. Global Operating Model Integration: We established globally distributed operations, providing seamless workflow connectivity between customer-facing and transactional processes. This enabled faster resolution cycles and reduced task redundancies.
   
2. Analytics-Driven Process Optimization: Sutherland conducted deep-dive process diagnostics across finance, collections, and customer service, identifying key friction points and redesigning workflows to eliminate inefficiencies.
   
3. Center of Excellence for Automation: We deployed intelligent automation to streamline high-volume, low-value tasks, particularly in Finance and Accounting. This included the intelligent application of unapplied cash, driving faster reconciliation and enhanced financial control.
   
4. Sutherland Translate AI^®: For the client’s Spanish-speaking customer base, we introduced real-time, AI-powered language translation integrated with outbound dialer functionality, enabling personalized and compliant engagement without requiring additional bilingual headcount.
   
5. Business Continuity and Backup Protocols: Sutherland designed and implemented structured backup mechanisms to ensure uninterrupted service during peak volumes or unplanned outages, preserving SLA adherence and regulatory compliance.

This end-to-end transformation not only improved performance but also laid the groundwork for an adaptive, resilient customer experience model.

The Outcome

Sustained Productivity, Enhanced Customer Sentiment, and Financial Clarity

The transformation delivered by Sutherland resulted in sweeping operational and financial improvements for the client. Across Finance and Accounting, automation-led optimization drove a 30% increase in efficiency, significantly reducing the manual effort required for reconciliation and reporting. The unapplied cash backlog – previously a persistent operational bottleneck – was cleared by over 90%, bringing newfound efficiency and transparency to financial operations.

From a customer experience standpoint, frontline agent satisfaction (CSAT) rose to 93%, fueled by better access to knowledge, simplified call flows, and improved backend coordination. In the collections domain, accounts aging over 180 days were reduced from 6% to 1.6%, directly enhancing working capital outcomes.

Equally important, service levels were stabilized across key business units, enabling the client to consistently meet and exceed regulatory and commission requirements. By embedding intelligent automation, multilingual AI, and continuous performance analytics into its core operations, the client emerged with a more agile, customer-centric model – better equipped to scale with evolving energy market demands.

That’s digital outcomes delivered!