Alinta Energy improved customer service performance and reduced operating friction by modernising its contact centre platform while running a distributed service model across Australian contact centres and an offshore team in the Philippines.
Company
Alinta Energy
Services Provided
Customer service operations
Contact centre support
Digital customer engagement
Workforce management support
Cloud contact centre platform implementation
Industry
Energy and utilities
Locations
Australia & Philippines
Operating Model
Distributed customer operations model combining Australian contact centres, an offshore delivery site in the Philippines, and a cloud-based customer engagement platform
Delivery Structure
Customer service delivery ran across three Australian contact centres and one offshore facility in the Philippines. Platform design and implementation were handled externally through Datacom using Genesys Cloud and AWS infrastructure.
Why This Approach
Alinta Energy needed to improve customer experience in a highly competitive and price-sensitive market while also dealing with aging contact centre technology, downtime risk, and the need to support digital-first customer engagement across multiple channels.
Success Snapshot
Performance Drivers
- Customer operations were supported through a distributed delivery model across four contact centre locations.
- Legacy contact centre technology was replaced with a cloud-based platform better suited to digital and omnichannel service.
- The implementation was delivered on a compressed timeline with structured training, change support, and post-go-live hypercare.
- New tools improved visibility, forecasting, queue management, self-service, and digital engagement.
Outcomes
- 66% decrease in the average speed of answer
- 17% improvement in service level
- 6% reduction in handle time
- 90% customer satisfaction
- 24 point increase in eNPS
- $650,000 in savings over three years
- Threefold increase in messaging traffic
- Consistent monthly grade of service achievement after implementation
Company Background
Alinta Energy is one of Australia’s largest energy retailers and generators, serving more than 1.1 million residential and business customers. Its customer operation runs at a meaningful scale, with around 760 agents across three Australian contact centres and one offshore facility in the Philippines, handling about two million calls and 250,000 emails each year.
Alinta Energy is not a business trying to build customer operations from scratch. They already have a substantial service footprint. The challenge was whether the underlying delivery model and technology were strong enough to support the next stage of customer experience improvement.
Industry and Operating Context
Customer service carries more pressure than many support functions. Customers expect billing help, account support, payment options, and issue resolution to work reliably, especially in a market where price sensitivity is high, and service dissatisfaction can quickly lead to churn.
At the same time, the old model of sending a bill and taking a payment is no longer enough. Customers increasingly expect digital options, self-service, web messaging, and smoother movement across channels. This means the contact centre has to do more than answer calls. It has to support a broader customer engagement model.
That puts pressure on both service delivery and the platform underneath it. If the technology is aging, difficult to integrate, and prone to downtime during upgrades, the service model starts to struggle. In that kind of setup, improving customer experience is not just about staffing, but also about rebuilding the operating backbone that supports the work.
Core Problem
Alinta Energy was dealing with two linked issues.
The first was customer operations. The company needed to support a customer-centric, digital-first strategy across a large service environment spanning Australian contact centres and an offshore team in Manila.
The second was platform risk. Its existing on-premises contact centre technology was nearing the end of support and creating practical operating problems. Frequent upgrades caused downtime and disruption. The system also had limitations around API integrations and digital capabilities, which made it harder to support evolving customer engagement needs.
This meant the challenge was not only about handling contact volume. It was also about modernising the contact centre in a way that improved digital capability, reduced technology risk, and supported service performance across a distributed operating model.
Outsourcing Solution
Alinta Energy addressed this through a combination of service model design and platform modernisation.
Customer operations continued to run across three Australian contact centres and one offshore facility in the Philippines. Public descriptions of the operating model point to a delivery footprint of roughly 760 agents, while Datacom’s implementation account refers to more than 1,000 staff across the four locations during the broader transformation environment.
On the technology side, Alinta Energy migrated its four contact centres to Genesys Cloud. The implementation was handled by Datacom, with AWS also listed as a partner. The project was designed, configured, and deployed in 18 weeks, followed by a six-week hypercare period supporting more than 800 staff across four locations.
The new setup connected all contact centre sites on a single cloud platform and introduced capabilities such as outbound dialling, self-service IVR, agent-assisted payment flows, web messaging, predictive engagement, workforce engagement tools, and automated employee onboarding through Microsoft Active Directory integration.
Change management appears to have been a significant part of making the transition work. Employees were involved early in testing and feature feedback, and training support was delivered both onsite and remotely. Datacom also reported that within the first four days after go-live, only 83 issues were reported across nearly 10,000 calls, which points to relatively stable early deployment under live conditions.
A separate 2021 report also noted that Alinta Energy moved its east coast customer service call centre from the Philippines to Morwell, creating 230 jobs over roughly six months. That means this case includes both an offshore component within the broader customer service footprint and a later onshore shift in one part of the service model. The more important point is that Alinta was actively redesigning how customer operations were structured while also modernising the platform underneath them.
Results
Average speed of answer fell by 66%. Service levels improved by 17%. Handle time dropped by 6%. Customer satisfaction reached 90%, and employee Net Promoter Score increased by 24 points. The company also reported $650,000 in savings over three years, which it said could be reinvested into further innovation.
Digital engagement also increased. Messaging traffic rose threefold after the business expanded its digital engagement capabilities. Alinta also reported that it consistently met its grade of service targets each month after implementation.
Operationally, the platform also improved visibility and control. Workforce planning, queue management, call insights, speech and text analytics, and customer journey visibility were all strengthened through the move to a unified cloud environment.
Conclusion
Alinta Energy’s case shows that customer operations in energy and utilities often need both service model support and platform change at the same time.
It was not simply contact volume, but also the combination of aging technology, digital engagement gaps, service expectations, and the demands of running customer operations across multiple sites. Alinta addressed that by modernising its contact centre platform and supporting delivery through a distributed operating model that included both Australian and Philippines-based service capacity.
Improving customer operations is not just about adding more people or adding new software. It is about making sure the service model, platform, and workflows can support the kind of customer experience the business is trying to deliver.
For energy and utilities providers, offshore support works best when it is tied to the operational pressure points that affect customer experience every day. Offshore 24/7 helps businesses build support around contact centre workflows, billing operations, account servicing, and service administration, so recurring demand is easier to manage, and internal teams can stay focused on the parts of the operation that require closer oversight.
