EnelClic, the new frontier for the most traditional contact tool: the voice

«The Control Room is one of the most fascinating spaces to visit at Enel», says Maurizio Cataldo. For Enel Energia, Maurizio works as head of the Control Room of the Telephone Channel, which is still today one of the key contact points in the relationship between the company and its customers. During 2021, customer calls to an operator were about 17 million. The Control Room is the nervous system of this contact network: on its 24 always-on screens, you can admire all this activity in real time. We are talking about it because Maurizio, together with his colleague Francesca Maria de Nitto, head of Commercial Planning for the Telephone Channel, contributed to the creation of a new mode of contact between customer and Enel, more digital and flexible: EnelClic. This evolution represents the twelfth contact channel available to Enel Energia’s customer base, which, through VOIP technology (voice over IP), enables the contact between customer and operator.

The principle is simple: in the Web Bill email, in the App or in SMS messages it is possible to get in touch with Enel Energia operators simply by clicking on an icon or a link, which allows communication through the Internet connection. In this way, the customer has an alternative to dialing the toll-free number and then waiting to be connected: they can talk to Enel with just a click, without even having to change window. This solution will make life easier for many people: the voice of an operator, as Francesca explains, is still the tool customers prefer to manage the most important activities: «We are in the era of digitalization and there is a growing use of alternative channels to the traditional telephone channel, but there are a series of needs for which customers still prefer to be able to talk by voice with an operator. Consolidating and strengthening this channel represents for us a way to “pamper” customers, and to increase the perception of closeness to the energy and gas provider».

EnelClic is a way to trigger a direct and quick relationship with the company, using the telephone channel but with the advantage of skipping some preparatory steps before reaching an operator. It is, in a sense, the perfect junction between classic and digital channels: you access online, you use the connection but you still retain the possibility of talking to a person to ask questions and express your needs. In short, the way to reach it changes, but the final destination remains the same. «The main advantages of a call through the Internet are ease of action and above all speed», explains Maurizio. «The so-called crossing time, that is the time the customer takes from trying to get in touch with Enel to the moment they succeed, is significantly reduced». Innovation can truly reach everywhere and make us look with new eyes even at what we thought we knew very well.

The work on EnelClic started last summer, with a working group, which also included Francesca and Maurizio, that began discussions with the other branches of the company involved in launching this new frontier. Adding a button to the App and enabling a call via Web may seem like a simple operation, but in reality it is the result of months of work involving many parts of the company: Digital Solution, Marketing, Infrastructure, Communication. A particular focus on the latter aspect: «Explaining this new opportunity to customers is obviously a decisive aspect, especially because it is aimed at a slightly more “traditional” slice of the customer base», confirms Francesca. «We decided to give this tool the dignity and autonomy of all the other more established contact points». The key step to achieve this was giving it a name: after all, without a name it is as if things still do not exist. And so the icon that allows calling via Web became EnelClic. From the start of the project to today, we have witnessed a small success story. Trials to improve and strengthen its use are ongoing: the icon is appearing more and more often and to an increasing number of customers. To give an idea, in January 4% of the calls handled by operators started precisely from EnelClic. And, as Maurizio and Francesca proudly point out on behalf of the whole team, this is just the beginning.