Yahoo Finance NiSource's (NI) Unveils Mobile Apps, Aids Customer-Friendly Move
NiSource’s NI operating companies announce the launch of Columbia Gas and Northern Indiana Public Service Company mobile apps, which are available on both Apple and Google Play Store. This launch is another step taken by this Merrillville, IN-based utility company toward digital transformation to enhance the customers’ service experience.
This app offers a bouquet of services, which their websites had provided earlier. To name a few are paying bills, enrolling subscribers, maintaining usage, viewing bills or even reporting an outage. A new feature to the apps, which was missing on the websites, is to start, stop and move the service.
Moreover, NiSource is planning to launch a Chatbot virtual assistant and a Live Chat feature in early 2022, which will help customers connect with the company’s help team virtually. Along with moving on the digitalization path, the utility is promoting paperless billing.
Motive Behind the Launch
NiSource’s customer base is expanding consistently and it keeps investing heavily to improve the reliability and safety of its services. The company’s customer base grew from 3.7 million in 2019 to 4 million in 2020. This digital launch will provide its extending customer base with convenient services through innovation. Moreover, with the reopening of economic activities, there is an expectation of a hike in demand and new customers approaching the company, thus making this app launch all the more important.
Also, with the increasing pace of life, the world is moving toward digitalization and customers opting for tech-friendly options. The utility’s launch will therefore help it attract such customers. This will further lift its already rising customer base and bolster its cash flows and operations in the long term.
Peer Moves
Along with NiSource, there are other electric companies, which are launching mobile apps to make their customer experiences better. Back in 2013, FirstEnergy FE unveiled a mobile website and a smartphone app for its electric utility customers with the new technology of reporting a power outage and accessing the outage maps. Moreover, Duke Energy DUK and Alliant Energy LNT announced the release of investor apps for mobile devices.
Price Movement
In the past six months, shares of the utility have increased 2% compared with the industry’s 1.7% growth.
Six Months Price Performance
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Zacks Rank
NiSource currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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