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Whitepaper: The acceptance of chatbotsAutomating Municipal Utility ProcessesReduce the burden on service hotlines and improve accessibility
Reporting meter readings, requesting rate changes, reporting power outages, and resolving billing issues—municipal utilities and energy providers handle thousands of routine customer inquiries every day. With BOTfriends’ AI-native voicebots, chatbots, and multi-agent orchestration, you can reliably automate these processes and keep your hotline accessible even during crises.
"Working with Botfriends is truly impressive, as they consistently deliver exceptional responsiveness. It's a pleasure to work with such a dedicated and efficient team."
Karlsruhe municipal utilities
"Thanks to real-time speech recognition, we can provide our customers with an intuitive system that is easy to use. This allows us to reduce the call volume to the contact center service portal in the long term."
City of Krefeld
"Communication with BOTfriends is very good and uncomplicated. The technical implementation is flawless, the tools are logical to use and the chatbot works the way you want it to."
Süwag Vertrieb AG & Co. KG
"We like the uncomplicated and flexible exchange with the BOTfriends. You always get food for thought and a new perspective. The bot helps us to answer "simple" customer queries on a daily basis."
one | energy in saxony
Exclusive insights: The status quo in municipal utility customer service in 2026
Our latest market analysis reveals the weaknesses in the service provided by German municipal utilities and energy suppliers and offers specific recommendations for sustainable customer service in 2026.
Why Energy Providers Need to Automate Their Services Today
Service Peaks During Rate Changes and Crises
Price adjustments, waves of customers switching providers, or power outages regularly lead to spikes in call volume that overwhelm traditional hotlines. Voicebots and chatbots can handle any number of inquiries simultaneously and ensure consistent availability.
Traditional IVR hotlines fail
Traditional telephony platforms build AI on top of legacy IVR trees. Despite the “AI voicebot,” callers still end up on hold. With AI-native voicebots, callers can freely state their request (“I’d like to report my meter reading”), the triage agent classifies it, and a process agent records the information and enters the value directly into the billing system.
Compliance and market role require documented responses
Energy utilities are subject to strict regulatory requirements (BNetzA, EnWG). Multi-agent architectures with hybrid intelligence process each response in a traceable and consistent manner, which is a significant advantage during audits.
Use Cases for AI Agents at Municipal Utilities
Reporting Meter Readings by Phone
Instead of submitting their meter readings by mail or through a portal after waiting on hold, customers report their meter readings using natural language. The voicebot or chatbot identifies the customer, checks the reading for plausibility, enters the value into the billing system, and confirms the entry without any disruption in the process.
Rate Advice & Switching Providers
Which plan is right for my usage? How do I switch? How much does green electricity cost? The AI agent provides personalized advice based on customer data and initiates the switching process directly.
Fault and Outage Reports
Voicebots record every report of power outages, gas leaks, or water main breaks in a structured manner, pinpoint the problem based on the address, and forward the structured data to the on-call team.
Questions About Bills and Estimated Payments
The AI agent immediately resolves issues such as adjustments to the advance payment, due dates, or changes to SEPA direct debits, and posts the changes directly to the billing system.
Multi-Agent Orchestration for Municipal Utilities
Service processes in the energy sector—such as authentication, meter reading validation, data entry into the billing system, and market communication—are data-critical. While AI agents using monolithic prompts tend to produce inaccurate results in these scenarios, BOTfriends resolves this issue with specialized agents. A typical setup might look like this:
The triage agent understands and classifies
The triage agent immediately recognizes customers’ freely worded inquiries and accurately assigns them to categories such as meter reading, rate advice, service outage reports, or billing questions. Through this automated pre-sorting, each inquiry is routed directly to the appropriate service workflow without any wait time.
The authentication agent identifies users securely
This agent ensures secure and GDPR-compliant identification of the contracting parties during the ongoing dialogue. The verification is performed fully automatically using the customer number, address, or phone number, even before sensitive consumption data or installment amounts are accessed.
The process agent operates within your systems
The Process Agent handles operational processes such as meter reading capture and performs an integrated validity check directly as part of the process. It automatically writes data back to your ERP or billing system—error-free and in full compliance with regulations—to, for example, immediately apply changes to estimated payments.
Expert knowledge to support the process, available at any time
Whether it’s statutory surcharges, complex rate structures for dynamic electricity rates, or internal guidelines on feed-in tariffs: The knowledge database is directly linked to the customer and service workflow. As soon as questions about billing details or grid connections arise during interactions with consumers or prosumers, the AI instantly provides the right answer from your verified knowledge base. This enables precise, reliable information and reduces the daily workload on the customer service center, while sensitive write access to the billing system (e.g., SAP IS-U) or the CRM takes place in the background in a completely secure and isolated manner.
Benefits of BOTfriends Solutions for Your Energy Utility Service
Consistent Availability Even During Peak Service Times
Voicebots and chatbots scale elastically and remain available even during major disruptions. This is a clear competitive advantage in a liberalized market.
Backend Integration with Hybrid Intelligence
BOTfriends records values in your billing system in full compliance with regulations. No made-up meter readings, no imaginary rate recommendations.
Significant relief for your service center
Routine inquiries take up the majority of service capacity. Automating them reduces hotline costs and frees up time for complex consultation issues.
GDPR-compliant & Made in Germany
When it comes to sensitive customer and usage data, data protection is non-negotiable. BOTfriends is hosted in the EU, complies with the GDPR and the EU AI Act, and does not share data with third parties.
Features that make the difference
Other providers
No templates
No industry experience
Often hidden costs
No integration templates
No individual onboarding
No Voicebot / Phonebot
Not GDPR-compliant depending on GenAI
BOTfriends Solutions for Municipal Utilities & Energy Providers
Automate customer service, back-office operations, and on-call notifications with AI-Native Voice and the right omnichannel solution for each use case.
- No dedicated IT team required
- GDPR-compliant & hosted in the EU
- Made in Germany
Round-the-clock service for your customers
The voicebot takes the pressure off your phone hotline around the clock by recording meter readings, answering questions about rates, and systematically handling reports of malfunctions and outages. For complex issues, calls are seamlessly transferred to your team, ensuring that no call is lost and wait times are eliminated.
Digital customer service directly through the customer portal, on the website, or via WhatsApp
Whether on your website, in the customer portal, or directly via WhatsApp, the chatbot answers your customers’ questions about rates and services immediately and resolves their issues on the spot. Thanks to the direct connection to your billing system, customers can easily complete standard processes on their own.
Inbox on Autopilot: Combating the Flood of Emails
Free your customer service center from the daily flood of emails regarding installment adjustments, direct debit authorizations, or billing questions. Intelligent email automation analyzes incoming messages, accurately categorizes the issues, and automatically triggers the appropriate follow-up processes in the background.
Smart Control for Complex, Multi-Step Workflows
Our AI agents are used for complex, multi-step energy workflows such as a complete provider switch, contract management, or receivables management. They orchestrate these processes end-to-end across all your backend systems.
Integration with Your Energy Provider's System Infrastructure
BOTfriends integrates with your existing billing and CRM systems via open APIs. Through Guided Sovereignty, our team works with you every step of the way—from co-creation in workshops to full-scale operation—including an Academy designed to empower your teams for the long term.
Success Stories: Why Service Teamstrust our AI Agent platform
An enterprise-grade platform for measurable success: BOTfriends optimizes your cost structure and revolutionizes customer interaction. Experience maximum process acceleration on a platform that redefines security and performance for complex enterprise structures.
“Working with Botfriends is truly impressive, as they consistently impress with their quick response times. It’s a real pleasure to work with a team that is so dedicated and efficient. Particularly noteworthy is how attentively Botfriends responds to customers’ wishes and needs, which shows that they truly put the customer first. Not to mention the user-friendly platform, which even those with little IT experience enjoy working with.”
“With BOTfriends, we’re automating service requests via a voicebot. Seamless integration with our existing systems was a key factor for us. We also appreciate the platform’s hybrid approach. A rule-based workflow combined with agent-driven processes strikes us as a good balance. What we value most is the combination of a technologically leading product and a highly dedicated team.”
“Thanks to the introduction of the chatbot, we’ve been able to implement internal processes and workflows that we didn’t have before. We’re deriving significant benefits from this. It was particularly important to us that the bot be integrated into our existing system infrastructure.”
“Chatbots have significantly reduced the workload on our service teams. What we particularly appreciate about BOTfriends is its technological flexibility, which allows us to provide optimal support to international guests at all times through multilingual capabilities and tailored digital solutions.”
“Our chatbot perfectly complements our existing online channels and gives our customers the ability to get answers to questions about Süwag or their energy product around the clock. Automating entire processes—such as meter reading submission and rate consultation—provides our customers with real added value.”
“More than just a simple Q&A bot”
“What I find particularly impressive is that BOTfriends isn’t just a simple Q&A bot. Instead, it’s a true AI. The bot helps handle higher volumes during seasonal peaks, thereby reducing the longer response times that would normally occur.”
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More about AI in the energy sector
Frequently asked questions
The BOTfriends platform integrates seamlessly with leading ERP and industry-specific billing systems in the energy sector—including SAP IS-U, Schleupen, Wilken, and powercloud—through a flexible API architecture. The Solution Engineering team also implements custom integrations with existing CRM and network systems.
Yes, using intelligent triage logic, AI agents immediately detect incident reports—such as gas leaks or power outages—and forward them in real time to the technical on-call team. Standard inquiries are resolved fully automatically in parallel, reducing the workload on your emergency hotline and ensuring that your team only needs to intervene at night or on weekends in the event of business-critical network crises.
For municipal utilities and energy providers, it is realistic to achieve an automation rate of up to 70 to 80 percent for traditional routine inquiries via voice, chat, and email. Especially during seasonal peaks—such as the annual meter reading period or price adjustments—AI agents handle the increased call volume without requiring additional staffing.
Yes, the BOTfriends platform is fully GDPR-compliant and meets the strict compliance and security requirements for critical infrastructure (KRITIS) in the energy sector. Thanks to secure hosting in Germany and a comprehensive governance structure, you retain absolute data sovereignty over all processed customer and consumption data at all times.