Yü Energy is a utilities supplier to both households and businesses across the UK. They are based in Nottingham and survived the tough circumstances which wiped out many of their competitors in the retail energy space.
They needed a data solution to improve their customer journey from quoting to onboarding and to support their digital transformation programme.
Challenge – Yü Energy needed data to digitalise their customer experience
Across the market, suppliers find it difficult to obtain reliable, near-real time energy industry data which can help them offer a better, more tailored service to customers. Many business owners and managers do not have all their energy information at hand, and automated data access improves the experience of searching for and signing a contract with a supplier.
Yü Energy needed to obtain industry-held customer data to enable them to quote business customers accurately for energy supply contracts via their website. The retail energy market is evolving rapidly due to the energy crisis, and data-driven digital tools are allowing suppliers to deliver an exceptional customer experience while energy prices are volatile.
ElectraLink’s unique position in the energy market means we are the only organisation that can provide half hourly and non-half hourly meter-level consumption data via an API. This makes ElectraLink a single point of truth for suppliers of all sizes – just what Yü Energy needed.
Solution – ElectraLink’s APIs and expertise deliver data and value
To overcome the challenge suppliers face when acquiring industry data, ElectraLink developed APIs which integrate seamlessly with customer systems to provide a range of data types on demand.
After initial consultations to communicate precise requirements, Yü Energy identified ElectraLink’s capabilities would meet their needs and make quoting and onboarding faster than ever.
QuoteRight and QuoteBusiness are APIs that deliver consumption, meter, address and supplier information from ElectraLink’s market-wide data lake to a customer’s internal digital systems. ElectraLink demonstrated the accuracy of the data to Yü Energy over the course of a year.
Yü Energy made extensive use of the test environment to familiarise themselves with the solution and required ElectraLink to work with their tech platform, Gorilla, to ensure seamless integration of the APIs. Within a year, Yü Energy were realising their ambitions of bringing easy quoting and onboarding to their business energy customers.
Results – Yü Energy saved time and almost doubled revenue
Yü Energy is now able to instantly obtain customer information without the customer needing to provide it themselves.
Time saved is the most significant benefit Yü Energy has derived from the APIs. Using the integration between Gorilla and ElectraLink, they can now price in seconds instead of hours for single meters, and minutes instead of days for multiple meters.
This time saved has allowed Yü Energy to reach out and help more customers than ever before, contributing to H1 2022 revenues jumping to £129mn compared to £66m the year before – a 95 percent increase. This has enabled Yü Energy to increase profit by 400 percent in the first half of 2022.
Alan Brown, Yü Energy’s Head of Transformation, said: “We have now integrated ElectraLink APIs to Gorilla and Salesforce, and in both instances the support from the ElectraLink team was excellent. We are in the midst of a highly complex digital transformation programme, and I would have to say the ElectraLink element was certainly one of the easier projects we’ve undertaken in the past year. Thanks for everything you’ve done to date, and we hope to continue and develop our partnership further.”
Other long-term benefits have included cost-saving advantages for the back office and administrative departments, and improved customer retention and with less churn.
