06 May 2025

Jez Pickering, Head of Customer Experience, Nebula

Voice over IP (VoIP) is not a new or unfamiliar concept to those responsible for managing corporate networks or IT decision-makers, but within certain sectors it has been under-adopted. One of the most interesting examples is the energy sector, which often have dispersed workforces, complicated workflows, intense margin scrutiny and a critical need for effective communication.

Since its emergence, increasingly faster internet speeds and more reliable connectivity have made the technology more appealing to businesses. Some of the biggest uptake has understandably been in call-heavy industries, such as hospitality, call centres, healthcare and insurance.

The Copper Switch Off, otherwise known as the ISDN and PSTN switch-off, is an initiative to retire and migrate all landlines to VoIP. In recent years, this has brought VoIP to the forefront of IT and procurement decision-making, and the effects of this announcement continue to rumble on as we edge closer to the switch-off.

As of 2023, Openreach stopped selling copper products and plans to completely retire the network by 2027. Despite the recent deadline pushback, organisations have prioritised migrating to VoIP to future-proof their systems.

If you are still assessing VoIP’s upsides, one of the main reasons for the copper switch-off is cost – the sheer capital required to maintain the copper network has become unsustainable, while the lower cost of VoIP for users is certainly appealing to those in charge of the bottom line.

Copper lines are also subject to disruption and signal issues, whereas VoIP offers a more consistent, reliable voice service for multiple numbers through one IP, allowing for call routing and additional functionality.

VoIP use cases in the energy sector

Returning to the energy sector specifically, as a mission-critical industry with staff often out-and-about, voice calls play an important role in keeping teams connected and informed.

Communicating effectively with those in the field, liaising with suppliers on time and communicating with customers in the remotest of locations is why VoIP has become an important addition to an energy company’s IT estate.

For large energy providers with global footprints, serving employees and customers seamlessly is a large-scale, highly complex operation. Communicating and connecting power plants and energy generation, regional hubs, call centres and roaming engineers requires significant resources and consistently available services.

Providing great customer service

VoIP also offers benefits to customer-facing roles and engineers responsible for customer troubleshooting. Large call centres field hundreds of calls a minute from customers. Efficiently routing calls to the correct and next available person is key to providing a quality service.

Customers understandably don’t enjoy waiting to speak to their energy provider. Additionally, customers could be in situations where they are without power or heating and want the issue resolved as quickly as possible.

Ensuring the call-waiting experience is as pleasant as possible can significantly alter a customer’s sentiment towards a brand and the likelihood of positive feedback, which drives loyalty and recurrent revenue.

As VoIP solutions are internet-based, solutions can be connected to analytics and wallboard tools to provide live data on available engineers, reducing waiting times and more accurately fielding calls to the appropriate teams.

If customers call outside of regular hours, call routing can connect them to an alternate operational call centre, send their voicemail to an on-call team or offer the option of in-call messaging to help resolve the emergency quicker.

Resolving infrastructure issues quickly

Away from customer interactions, phone connectivity has long been an issue for engineers working within supply infrastructure. Energy facilities are often in remote areas, making communication to these sites difficult but also essential to keeping systems running. In some instances, traditional connectivity approaches aren’t possible or extremely expensive and complex to install.

As many of these infrastructure sites are mission-critical and discussions are often confidential, the added security of a secure VoIP infrastructure provides reassurance over its traditional counterpart.

VoIP provides cost effective and secure connectivity for remote facilities, enabling teams to update on progress without relying on phone signal. For complex issues, additional assistance can be provided remotely via a secure line, helping resolve issues quicker rather than having additional engineers travel onsite. A reliable signal is also crucial when dealing with mission-critical repairs.

Engineers without a permanent office still need to be contactable, especially those on-call who spend much of their time travelling between customer visits and working round the clock to resolve emergency repairs to essential equipment.

Engineers on-site or travelling can still be connected to a central system, providing real-time data to operational and project teams. With VoIP solutions, engineers can be sent ‘voicemail to email’ to review, access call logs and answer enquiries remotely, providing quicker updates to support teams who can facilitate the next steps or offer additional support if required.

There are also benefits beyond internal use cases. With consumer energy suppliers looking to diversify offerings, VoIP could be used as an additional revenue stream.

Customers could be provided VoIP as part of a service bundle, creating a more compelling offering for them to stay long-term with the same provider. The same applies to B2B suppliers who are building multifaceted relationships with customers.

Effective communication is key to successfully running any organisation, especially in a mission-critical industry like energy. VoIP’s capability to integrate with existing internet infrastructure, service tools, productivity tools and connectivity footprints is another long-lasting benefit that shouldn’t be overlooked.

There are plenty of advantages and although migrating systems can feel like a significant undertaking, with the copper switch-off deadline bearing down and financial efficiency once again rising to the top of executive agendas, those in the energy sector should consider future-proofing their voice systems just as it would any other solution.