An American Energy & Utilities provider set out to transform its sales and customer engagement for a more efficient, data-driven, and client-centric approach. Enter Ashling. Together, we built a Center of Excellence (CoE) for Intelligent Automation, reinventing their RFP processes—and driving over $10M in revenue at a single location—by infusing every proposal with richer data and insights. But that was just the beginning. We then elevated their operations with Agentic AI, extending these capabilities across the contact center and redefining how they engage with customers.
“We envisioned a future where every customer interaction was informed by real-time insights, every proposal was crafted with precision, and collaboration flowed seamlessly between departments.” – Head of CoE
The Challenge
The sales teams were under constant pressure, managing multiple Request for Proposals (RFPs) simultaneously, needing to craft unique, compelling responses under tight deadlines and respond to customer inquiries with speed and accuracy. Their key challenges included:
Siloed Processes
Sales and specialized resources operated in silos, leading to limited product understanding and inconsistent RFP responses across business units.
Disparate Company Data
Unstructured and non-unified customer sales and interaction history data made it difficult to respond to customer requests and manage multiple RFPs effectively, ultimately impacting revenue and diminishing employee morale.
Inefficient Manual Workflows
The manual handling of RFPs often resulted in missed deadlines, inconsistent responses, and loss of valuable insights from past proposals.
Competitive Pressures
In a market where customer experience and pricing are critical, the absence of a centralized commercial hub impeded the company’s ability to leverage digital workflows and real-time customer insights to action customer inquiries.
Determined to turn things around, our COE team collaborated closely with the client to transform their entire sales and customer engagement process into a unified, data-driven powerhouse. To address these challenges, a comprehensive solution was implemented, centered around three key pillars: knowing the customer, reducing specialization barriers, and extending digital workflows throughout the organization.
Know Your Customer
Empower teams with real-time customer sentiment and historical data while transforming the contact center into a revenue-generating hub through a centralized repository of customer insights.
Reduce Specialization
Break down silos by standardizing and automating sales tasks, enabling cohesive strategies across regions and business units.
Extend Digital Workflows
Create a single source of truth with a centralized data repository that streamlines data automation, activity routing, and informed decision-making.
Yesterday: An Intelligent Automation for RFP Ingestion & Response
The first step was a radical shift in how they handled RFPs. The transformation began with automating the handling of incoming Request for Proposals (RFPs) at a single location.
Stepping into new territory by leveraging emerging GenAI technologies, we designed, built and deployed an intelligent automation solution that automatically monitored incoming RFPs, extracted crucial data, and routed real-time questions to AI agents. Agents then developed standardized, data-rich responses for human review and final dispatch.
The once labor-intensive process was transformed into a streamlined process where every response was not only standardized but also enriched with historical insights and consistent pricing from a centralized data lake. Built on robust Azure infrastructure and seamlessly integrated with Salesforce, this new system promised to transform the RFP response function into a revenue-generating machine.
Results
RFP productivity soared by an impressive 10x, with response rates climbing to an astounding 70–80%. This efficiency wasn’t just about numbers—it translated directly into a $10M revenue boost. Moreover, the streamlined processes led to an operational cost reduction of around $6M, all while minimizing COGS expenses.
$10M in Revenue
RFP productivity improved 10x, with response rates reaching 70-80%.
$6M Cost Takeout
A significant increase in revenue was achieved with minimal increase in COGS.
Enhanced Efficiency
The solution ensured prospects received high-quality, current information about products and services, while improving transparency across business units.
Today: Enhancing Customer Engagement with Agentic Automation
Building on momentum, our client enlisted Ashling’s COE team to help reinvent customer interactions. Our team crafted a sophisticated Customer Sales and Support Agent that ingests inquiries across multiple channels, including emails, phone calls, client portals and chatbot interactions. Then, an AI Agent with deep domain expertise and access to a unified customer data hub verifies customer accounts, interprets and categorizes requests, and leverages generative AI to produce real-time summaries—all stored in a centralized repository for continuous analysis.
The agent then routes requests to specialized workflows and API calls to execute requests such as surfacing invoices, updating account details, sending renewal notifications, or investigating and waiving late fees with unprecedented speed and precision. Every interaction is captured, actioned and completed, while ensuring customers receive prompt support and responses.
Results
Customer engagement and operational efficiency reached new heights. Call counts, handling times, and hold durations dropped significantly, while resolution rates climbed, leading to notable gains in customer satisfaction and retention. This wasn’t merely about improved metrics—it translated directly into significant cost savings and a frictionless experience for both customers and employees.
Improved Customer Experience
Call volumes and average handle times decreased, hold times were minimized, and first-call resolution rates soared. This resulted in elevated NPS, CSAT, and CES scores, reduced email and return mail volumes, lower customer churn, and improved retention rates.
$1M Cost Takeout
By streamlining key processes like customer setup validation, notifications (renewals, billing, invoicing), and late-fee investigations, the client was able to reduce days outstanding and minimize manual handling of inquiries.
Improved Employee Experience
Enhanced workflows not only delivered a seamless customer experience but also improved employee engagement, allowing their workforce to refocus their energy on high-value work.
Tomorrow: Scaling the COE for Agentic AI Excellence
Our client has taken a bold leap forward, emerging as one of the first organizations to seamlessly integrate Agentic AI into their comprehensive digital transformation strategy. Recognizing the impact of these initiatives, and in close collaboration with our COE team, they are set to scale their Agentic AI capabilities across business units and locations. This strategic expansion is projected to drive up to $40 million in revenue. With Ashling’s COE team guiding change management, driving employee adoption, and continually identifying opportunities for improvement, our client is poised for sustainable growth while maintaining their competitive edge in the Energy & Utilities sector.
