Energy and utility companies are investing in grid modernization, preparing for rising electricity demand, expanding renewable energy and strengthening resilience. Customers, meanwhile, are facing higher bills, new programs, and more digital ways to manage their energy.
Utilities need customers to understand and support changes that may take years to deliver. Yet, the customer experience happens in much smaller moments: opening a bill, reporting an outage or looking for a rebate.
In 2026, utilities recognize that these moments are where customers decide whether to trust the organization.
Six ways utilities can win customer trust
Customer trust is no longer won through communication alone. It is built through the ease, clarity and usefulness of everyday customer experiences.
- Make the bill easier to understand and act on: Escalent’s April 2026 research found that Customer Effort declined by one point year over year to 722, driven primarily by billing and payment friction.
- Communicate before customers have to ask: Customers want to know why infrastructure investments are happening, what service changes mean and when promised improvements will become visible. J.D. Power’s 2026 research found that utilities that proactively communicate about power outages score 52 points higher in customer satisfaction. For proactive communication about infrastructure investments, the difference rises to 82 points. Do not wait for customers to enter a service channel before starting the conversation. Use outage alerts, digital notifications, email and text to explain what is happening, what customers can expect and what comes next.
- Show customers what their feedback changed: Asking for feedback is relatively easy. Showing what happened because of it is harder, and far more valuable. Customer listening only builds credibility when it changes something customers can see. That could mean changing a service process, improving a digital journey or adjusting how a program is communicated. Do not simply report that customers were consulted. Show where their input changed a decision, improved a service or influenced a program. When feedback cannot be acted on, explain why.
- Put savings where customers can actually find them: Escalent found that customers struggling to manage bills often look to the bill itself for savings opportunities, yet many find them difficult to identify. If a customer is reviewing a higher-than-expected bill, relevant assistance, energy-efficiency programs, rebates or payment options should be easy to discover at that moment.
- Design digital service around moments, not channels: Digital transformation should be measured by whether customers can complete important tasks without unnecessary effort. J.D. Power’s 2026 Utility Digital Experience Study found a 100-point gap between the highest- and lowest-performing utility digital experiences. Mobile apps scored an average of 654, compared with 591 for mobile websites, while 28% of profiled utilities did not offer a mobile app. Pricing plans, rebates and real-time outage information were among the hardest areas to navigate.
- Make self-service and human support work as one: Digital self-service channels manage more than half of customer interactions across utilities and energy retailers, yet customer experience has not meaningfully improved as a result. Its research points towards more proactive, AI-enabled customer care. Customers should be able to move from digital self-service to human support without repeating information or restarting the journey. AI can handle routine enquiries, provide outage updates and help anticipate customer needs during high-volume events. But it works best within a connected service operation, with people stepping in where judgment, empathy or more complex support is needed.
A bill should not leave customers searching elsewhere for answers. It should make the next useful action obvious. Utilities can make savings programs, payment plans and budget billing easier to find using smarter billing solutions.
Utilities should start with the moments customers most need help with (such as checking an outage, understanding a bill, changing a pricing plan or finding a rebate) and design the journey around completing them easily.
The utilities setting the pace are making trust operational
A clearer bill can surface a savings program. Customer feedback can influence a program change. Proactive communication can explain the investment behind a rate change.
Escalent’s July 2026 research found that while industry brand trust has plateaued, the 32 most trusted brands improved year over year and pulled further ahead on customer focus, fairness, ethics, advocacy, and reputation.
The most trusted brands are making it easier for customers to understand, act on, and support the decisions the utility needs to make next.
How Infosys BPM can help
Infosys BPM helps utilities simplify customer journeys and respond to changing demand through energy-focused business process management services.
Our services can improve billing and meter-to-cash processes, support digital self-service, strengthen outage communications, and deploy AI to make customer service more proactive. The focus is on connecting the processes, data and people behind the experience.
Build trust into every energy experience with Infosys BPM.
