Beyond Self-Service to a More Connected Utility Experience

Part 6 of KUBRA’s 2026 Utility Customer Experience Blog Series

How utilities can turn digital adoption into a more complete customer experience

Utilities should be proud of the huge strides they’ve made in digital self-service. Our research showed that 77% of utility customers say they can complete most billing and payment tasks independently, and just 14% say they still need help with some tasks. That’s a big win. 

But just as customer expectations aren’t static, neither should utilities' attempts to meet them be. The challenge ahead is more complex and requires moving beyond completing routine tasks independently and assessing how easy it is for customers to get help when and where they need it. That is a new marker in whether a digital customer experience is successful. Right now, only 54% say it's easy to get help when they need it, leaving nearly half of customers unsatisfied on this front. These findings point to the need for utilities to integrate self-service, communications, billing, payments, and support so customers can navigate their relationship within a single, seamless experience. 

The future of utility self-service isn't simply about getting more customers to do things themselves. It's about creating digital experiences that anticipate needs, provide guidance, and connect customers to the right next step.

Building on the Self-Service Foundation

The majority of customers can complete most billing and payment tasks independently, which clearly demonstrates how far utility digital experiences have evolved. But successful task completion doesn't necessarily mean the entire customer journey is connected or intuitive.

What channels are customers using to accomplish these tasks? 60% primarily pay while logged in to their account via their utility’s website or app, underscoring that owned digital channels have become the default touchpoint. But that dominant number hides a more fragmented reality. Paying a bill is rarely the only thing a customer is doing. In the course of managing their account, they may check a bill on one channel, make a payment on another, read a communication in their inbox, and reach out to support somewhere else entirely.

Customers can get things done, showing the digital foundation is strong. The question is what they experience while doing it.

Close the Gaps Between Digital Tasks

Customer journeys rarely consist of a single action. A customer may need to understand a bill, review account information, make a payment, update preferences, find assistance, and confirm that an action was completed. 

Utilities that keep optimizing individual transactions (e.g., faster payment flows or cleaner bill designs) will still leave customers feeling as if they're stitching the experience together themselves. The opportunity now is to connect the channels so the experience feels whole, even when the tasks are scattered, reducing unnecessary navigation, repeated steps, and the need to search for information.

Make Digital Experiences More Intelligent

The next generation of self-service can use customer and account context to deliver relevant information, actions, and support at the right time, rather than customers having to find the right tools themselves. For example:

• Proactive communications can alert customers to important account activity and guide them back into the digital experience. 
• In-context guidance and AI-assisted experiences can help customers navigate questions and more complex interactions without immediately leaving self-service.

These tools allow utility customers to move from customer-initiated self-service to proactive digital engagement.

Connect Self-Service and Support

Even for the digitally savvy, some tasks or questions can’t be completed or answered through self-service. And there is a segment of customers who can't manage routine tasks entirely on their own. It's far from a majority, but this group isn't negligible either. 14% still need assistance with some tasks, 4% find self-service tools too time-consuming or difficult to use, and 5% prefer contacting customer support over using self-service at all. 

One area you don’t want customers struggling with is getting help, and currently, 13% say it's difficult or very difficult. Whether customers reach the limits of self-service at the beginning or nearing the end of their journey, support should feel like the next step in that same journey, not the beginning of a new one.

Assistance needs to be easier to discover within digital experiences and provide clearer escalation paths when customers aren’t getting the answers they're looking for from self-service and need extra help. When customer journeys are connected, issues are resolved more quickly while reducing unnecessary friction and repeated interactions.

The goal of self-service isn't to eliminate support. It's to make digital and assisted experiences work together.

Turn the Digital Channel Into an Engagement Hub

With 60% of customers already paying bills through their utility's website or app, utilities have a foundation to build a more complete experience on, not just a payment channel. 

Bringing together billing, payments, account information, preferences, communications, assistance, and other relevant services creates a connected experience for customers, giving them one place to understand what's happening, take action, manage preferences, and find help.

It also gives utilities an avenue to deliver relevant communications and guide customers toward digital actions such as AutoPay, paperless billing, payment options, and account management.

How KUBRA Can Help

Moving beyond individual digital transactions toward a more connected customer experience is easy with KUBRA MyHQ+™, a complete customer billing and payment portal built on the KUBRA HQ™ platform. Its centralized engagement hub brings together billing, payments, account information, preferences, and communications into a single digital experience.

KUBRA's communications capabilities help utilities proactively reach customers with timely, relevant information and guide them toward the appropriate next action. By layering in AI capabilities, customers get additional guidance to help navigate digital experiences and access information more easily. When these capabilities are connected, utilities make digital experiences more useful for customers while creating more opportunities to engage with them throughout the customer journey.

Utilities have already built a strong foundation for digital self-service. Now it’s time to connect those capabilities into a more complete customer experience. And that takes looking beyond whether customers can complete individual tasks and assessing how easily they can move from information to action to support.

When digital experiences are truly connected, customers accomplish more, receive relevant guidance, and access support without having to navigate fragmented journeys.

This is the sixth post in KUBRA’s 2026 Utility Customer Experience Blog Series, based on original research from our white papers, The Utility Billing and Payment Journey: Identifying Where Customer Friction Still Exists and From Transactions to Trust: The Future of Utility Billing & Payments.

Read the research