TEPCO Energy Partner: Improving customer service and efficiency with Google Maps Platform

"Placing the highest priority on safety while fulfilling its responsibility and pioneering the future of energy for a safe and comfortable life;" it is under this management philosophy that Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TEPCO) provides energy and services indispensable to the lives of the people and companies in Japan.

Its group company, TEPCO Energy Partner, Inc., is an electricity and gas retail department that provides customer service. The company promotes enhanced digital transformation (DX) by implementing Google Maps Platform to improve the customer experience, boost operational efficiency, and reduce running costs.

Yoshitaka Iizuka, Team Leader of the DX Promotion Office at TEPCO Energy Partner, explains: "To further strengthen our commitment to customers, we launched reforms through DX in July 2019 and officially established the DX Promotion Office in April of the following year. These are for realizing the company's vision of becoming a 'future-oriented infrastructure company.'"

Improving customer service and operational efficiency with DX

Across the energy industry, customer service was traditionally based on call centers. Operators would search for and confirm callers' locations, and then identify the type of support needed based on information given over the phone. As a result, it could take a significant amount of time to accurately determine a customer's location, making it difficult to provide the appropriate support.

However, the deregulation of electric power and new services offered by various companies is leading to rapid changes in the energy industry. Now, even higher quality customer services are expected.

"Therefore, we set out to provide an easier, more convenient, and higher quality customer experience and service to become the company of choice for Japanese consumers, while achieving a reduction in the operational cost," explains Iizuka.

To this end, the company streamlined its customer service operations with an omnichannel system so customers could get faster responses to queries via web-based forms, chat, and automated voice. The company leveraged Google Maps Platform APIs to deliver the location services required to transform these services.

Choosing Google Maps Platform

According to Iizuka, when promoting DX by establishing an omnichannel customer support system, a platform that can accurately identify and utilize location information is key.

"Location information is the basis of our electricity and gas supply management, as well as our customer support. Unless we improve the accuracy of this information, promoting DX itself will be difficult. We chose Google Maps Platform to meet this fundamental need," he explains.

Iizuka had already used Google Maps in his private life due to its high functionality and accuracy. Also appealing was Google Maps Platform's rich set of APIs, with well-documented and accessible information on each specification, usage, and example. After finding a new development partner, GOGA, Inc., he kicked off the implementation of Google Maps Platform just six months after the DX project started.

Completing system implementation in just three months

As Iizuka started working on the project's development alongside Goga, tens of millions of customers' locations needed to be registered on Google Maps Platform in the form of longitude and latitude data. In the past, these locations were registered using traditional addresses. The project team had to devise ways to accomplish this, such as distributing requests to avoid reaching the API specification limit or handling tasks over a long period using Google Cloud.

However, despite these intricacies, there were no major issues in the development process. Goga is an expert in mapping data, and the architecture of Google Maps Platform is ideal for agile development.

This allowed Iizuka to form a small project team to develop, test, and individually modify each issue by leveraging Google Maps Platform. "Large-scale projects are typically conducted in a waterfall approach and become time-consuming. However, we could proceed with the project exactly as planned and speedily enough. We completed the implementation in just three months. It was a huge boost for us."

Drastically increased convenience and accuracy

Currently, TEPCO Energy Partner uses two Google Maps Platform APIs, starting with the Places API, to provide an autocomplete feature. Iizuka says, "We have improved the customer experience because when customers enter their address in a web inquiry form, the autocomplete feature will populate the correct address or display a list of options, simplifying the process."

Meanwhile, operators use the same functionality when receiving queries from customers, so they can quickly confirm the customer's address and input the data.

In addition, TEPCO Energy Partner uses the Places API in a sub-project to expand corporate sales. TEPCO group has one of Japan's largest infrastructures, containing various information such as store operating hours, service details, and user reviews. The company is currently analyzing this data with the Places API to explore the possibility of making new suggestions for energy use and developing more diversified services.

The team uses the Geocoding API to identify more accurate locations from address information provided in channels like chat, voice recognition, and web forms. According to Iizuka, the Geocoding API is the most frequently used.

"Information on electricity and gas supply points used to be text data in our contract management system. With the Geocoding API, we converted it into latitude and longitude, then integrated it into our database. This greatly improved our location search speed, accuracy, and flexibility, and expanded our response capability. Unlike chatting over the phone, operators can now respond to multiple queries simultaneously."

Tripled operational efficiency and achieved significant cost savings

TEPCO Energy Partner's DX reform, implemented with Google Maps Platform geolocation services, has gradually transformed the company's point of contact into an omnichannel system and began offering customer service through a new platform. "Our company now handles about 300,000 inquiries per month, which means we doubled or tripled our operational efficiency compared to when customer service was provided by telephone operators," says Iizuka of the project's results. "The impact has been substantial, both in terms of improving the customer experience and increasing operational efficiency for cost savings."

On the other hand, by converting location information into latitude and longitude, TEPCO Energy Partner has improved the database's precision because it helped identify inaccuracies and incorrectly input information that remained in the contract management system.

Iizuka adds, "The implementation of Google Maps Platform played a big role in shifting to a full cloud system. We used to have an on-site call center in our building. However, with the onset of COVID-19, the number of operators working from home has increased, creating a growing need to decentralize operating locations to improve business continuity. Google Maps Platform helps us to respond to these needs and challenges."

Becoming a "Future-Oriented Infrastructure Company"

Having achieved significant results in this first phase of DX with Google Maps Platform, Iizuka now expects further growth and new possibilities by continuing to leverage more Google Cloud technologies.

"For example, for data analysis, in addition to Google Analytics, we have started implementing BigQuery, Vertex AI, and Looker in the last year. Especially for Looker, we can use it for various types of analysis and new business areas through integration with Google Maps Platform," he says.

The pursuit of improving customer service never ends. By providing a better customer experience with Google Maps Platform, TEPCO Energy Partner keeps moving toward its vision of becoming a "future-oriented infrastructure company."