AI Outperforms Industry Benchmarks
El Paso Electric Company
AI
Customer Service
AI Outperforms Industry Benchmarks
Background
El Paso Electric engaged Hahn to support the launch of a pilot program testing whether Time Varying Rates (TVR) could encourage customers to shift their energy use, save money, and reduce strain on the grid during peak hours.
The pilot included four distinct plans with different eligibility criteria—which meant traditional mass marketing and PR approaches were not feasible.
The Challenge
- Recruit participants for the new RightTime Energy Use program through personalized, one-to-one outreach.
- We needed to clearly explain how TVR works—different rates depending on the time, day, or month.
- Each plan had a defined enrollment target to ensure pilot viability. With market research showing similar programs average only a 2% enrollment rate, achieving our goals would require reaching nearly the entire customer base.
Solution
Hahn developed a customized, AI-powered outreach program for four plans, engaging 50,000+ customers via phone and text in English and Spanish.
The program featured:
- Outbound calls with voicemails and strategic callbacks at varied times and days.
- Text outreach for interested customers, including live question-and-answer engages
- Real-time bill estimation under the new plan.
- Integration with call-center for seamless warm transfers when human assistance was needed.
The AI engaged customers in natural conversations, explained the TVR program and its benefits, addressed questions, and guided customers to enrollment
The Results
- Hahn’s AI solution outperformed historic averages and successfully helped El Paso Electric exceed its residential enrollment goals in all 4 plans ahead of time.
- Notably, over 50% of participants enrolled after interacting solely with the AI, without ever needing to speak to a representative.
- This was a result of ~200k attempted calls and thousands of text conversations. Traditionally, in order to make that volume of calls in 75 days, would have required hiring an additional 51 FTEs.
