case studies

E.ON Next

THE CUSTOMER

E.ON Next is part of the E.ON UK energy retail business, supplying electricity and gas to  residential and SME customers. E.ON Next is the third biggest supplier of energy in the  UK. It’s part of the E.ON Group, which operates in more than 30 countries and serves over  50 million customers. 

As of Q4 2023, E.ON Next’s market share in the UK was: 

• Electricity: 16.8%
• Gas: 14.1%

THE CHALLENGE

E.ON Next were in a position with debt management and collections activities being  managed through numerous tools & third-party solutions, with high levels of manual  effort required and limited adaptability or ability to enhance. In order to meet the business  needs of improving customer experience, enhancing operational efficiency & driving  improved commercial outcomes, and particularly in light of the challenges arising from  the cost-of-living crisis and upward trajectory of energy prices, E.ON Next needed to  enhance debt & customer management capabilities. 

Remaining on manual and labour-intensive solutions was not an option as it would have  led to a greater need to recruit and train credit specialists, project teams, manage overheads & stifling the opportunity for innovation.

THE SOLUTION

After a very detailed analysis of the major providers of debt collection solutions in the market, E.ON Next decided that the Pega Collections platform was the application most suitable for its needs. Based on the world-leading low-code Pega InfinityTM platform, the Pega Collections solution’s decisioning and personalised customer engagement features could be leveraged to provide intelligent customer segmentation and targeted campaigns that enable personalised engagement with each residential and SME customer. As well as setting themselves up for future innovations such as leveraging AI and Machine learning.

E.ON Next selected ai4process, a UK-headquartered international consulting firm specialising in implementing low-code platforms to its client-base of blue-chip companies, as its delivery partner due to the depth of industry knowledge and experience that  ai4process had built up with successfully delivering Pega Collections and Pega Customer Service implementations. 

The delivery plan was quite aggressive, given that the client was moving from a mostly manual process to a largely automated solution in the first production release. The first  phase of the project was delivered in seven 2-week sprints after an initial 2-week Prepare  Phase and a 4-week Testing and Acceptance period enabling early collections and newly into-debt processing. The second phase delivered in five 2-week sprints delivered end to-end debt management including late-stage collections and migration. There is ongoing  engagement and improvements being made over the next 3 to 6 months to start to  deliver further technical enhancements for the client including leveraging the Pega GenAI.  

The client is delighted with the outcome which includes an automated end-to-end debt  management solution with seamless third-party integrations. The client is also looking to  the future in the coming period ,focussing on leveraging AI and Machine Learning as well  as driving enhancements to its journeys to deliver personalised, tailored strategies – delivered using the latest Pega Infinity™ functionality, including Pega GenAI.

THE OUTCOME

Following the agile project delivery, E.ON Next re-platformed over 1 million customers in a matter of weeks to Pega Collections, resulting in improved automation of workflow and reduction of manual overheads. The client now can route all customers through new automated journeys which provide E.ON Next with the ability to service customers at the right time and place and with the right teams. The client was also able to provide visibility of the entire end-to-end journeys to inform future strategies and better data-led decision making in the future. E.ON Next has seen significant improvements in bad debt outcomes and the debt book trajectory, with the new Debt Management System (‘DMS’) playing an important role in enabling this.

All users are now following a consistent process using the simple-to-use intuitive guided processes introduced by the DMS application, meaning that staff do not need to rely on a constantly changing staff handbook to perform their job role effectively. This will in turn lead to an improved time-to-value when recruiting new credit specialists to the team.

Sean Murray, E.ON Next’s Head of Debt Transformation, says ‘We are delighted that we chose Pega and ai4process as our partners to transform our debt management estate and are very confident that we made the right choice, given that we have been able to transform what was a largely manual process into a largely automated function with end-to-end debt management in the space of just a few months, whilst simultaneously driving forward experience of our colleagues and customers. We are excited for the future as we look to leverage more Pega features to further automate customer journeys, unlock AI to improve our customers’ experiences and improve our operational efficiencies and underlying revenue’.

John Niblett, Pega’s Vice President of Select and Growth Markets, says ‘We are delighted that E.ON Next recognised that the capabilities of the Pega Collections platform would prove to be the best choice for them to transform their Collections landscape. The new DMS system is allowing E.ON Next to deliver the benefits it desired and more and we are looking forward to continuing to partner them in their ongoing transformation initiative into the future’.

ai4process’s Vice President of Customer Success, Lee Runciman comments ‘This project has been a great success and is a terrific example of what can be achieved when three independent organisations work together in complete harmony to deliver a common goal. We are very proud that we were selected as the chosen delivery partner for E.ON Next and have already started the next stage of the journey to bring further enhancements and improvements to the platform and help E.ON Next deliver its desired business outcomes’.

About ai4process:

ai4process are specialists in automating manual business processes using the best-in-class low-code, Intelligent Automation platform, Pega InfinityTM. Through our three pillars, ai4consulting, ai4talent and ai4innovation, we actively build the Pega ecosystem and build class-leading project kick-starter applications including ai4HR, ai4 Empathetic Collections and many more.