How can customer inquiries be answered faster, more accurately, and more efficiently without overburdening employees? That question was at the heart of a project Lufthansa Industry Solutions delivered for EWE NETZ: In just four months, a Smart Assistant was deployed—an AI-powered system that processes natural-language queries, automatically consolidates relevant information from internal knowledge sources, and gives employees precise, context-specific answers. This significantly reduces response times while ensuring consistently high-quality answers.
From fragmented knowledge sources to precise real-time answers
Smart Assistant: How EWE NETZ Speeds Up Customer Service with AI
The Customer
EWE NETZ operates electricity and natural gas grids in northwestern Germany, particularly in the Ems-Weser-Elbe region, as well as in Brandenburg and on the island of Rügen, and is responsible for around 1.7 million service connections. In addition to its electricity and gas grids, the company manages regional drinking water networks and, as a critical infrastructure (KRITIS) operator, runs its own telecommunications networks to monitor its infrastructure. Operating, maintaining, and expanding these networks are core responsibilities, but direct contact with residential and commercial end users is equally important: Customer service employees are the first point of contact for questions, outage reports, technical advice, and service connection requests. They therefore play a major role in shaping perceptions of service quality.
- Design and implementation of an AI-powered Smart Assistant solution based on retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
- Integration of internal knowledge sources
- Deployment of the solution within the existing Azure cloud infrastructure
- Development of a web app with an intuitive user interface, filtering options, and feedback features
The Challenge
Before the Smart Assistant was introduced, customer service processes were time-consuming. Employees had to compile information from various sources and knowledge bases, each structured differently, to answer a wide range of inquiries—some of them complex. EWE NETZ recognized the need to provide information more efficiently, ensure consistently high-quality answers, and reduce the workload for employees.
The Solution
To address these customer service challenges, Lufthansa Industry Solutions implemented a Smart Assistant solution for EWE NETZ based on retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). This approach uses generative AI to turn relevant information retrieved from an existing knowledge source into precise, context-specific information in real time. The solution runs entirely within EWE NETZ's Azure cloud infrastructure.
Employees access the Smart Assistant through a web app with an intuitive interface. Alongside conventional text search, the platform offers filters that let users narrow results by topic or scope. Employees can rate answer quality using the feedback feature, enabling continuous system improvement.
Customer Benefits
The results are clear: Customer inquiries can now be answered faster. Employees spend less time on manual research, and their workload is noticeably lighter. Customer service remains efficient even when inquiry volumes are high, while the solution remains cost-effective to operate.
Its flexible architecture allows EWE NETZ to adapt the platform to new requirements or add new knowledge sources at any time. As a result, the Smart Assistant delivers lasting improvements in service quality, boosts job satisfaction, and strengthens EWE NETZ's competitiveness. The solution was implemented in just four months.
- Faster handling of customer inquiries through precise, real-time answers
- Less manual research and a noticeable reduction in employee workload
- Cost-effective, scalable operation within the existing cloud infrastructure
- Flexible expansion to support additional requirements and knowledge sources
- Greater job satisfaction and a lasting boost to competitiveness