Planning Committee Spotlights: Sonia McCollum, Southern Company Gas

Since CS Week 2020, Sonia McCollum has enjoyed the extra ribbon designating her as a Planning Committee or PC, added to her CS Week name badge. IUCX 2025 will find her again involved with the Digital Engagement Workshop track and its Deep Dives. It’s a natural fit for her because Sonia is responsible for initiatives to improve customer self-service – the digital channels – for Southern Company Gas.

At her utility, Sonia is responsible for the My Account portal and the IVR. She leads efforts with technology partners and their internal IT team that focus on the end user experience. “That’s huge for us. We want to build awareness for our products. For me, it’s the results that we deliver, and I’m all about the numbers. Even with a small dollar budget, our CSAT is up six percentage points since 2021. We don’t have a native application; rather, we’ve invested in a mobile-friendly website. Another performance stat I’m proud of is we’ve grown paperless bill adoption from 36 to 51% in two years; that’s an increase of 42%.”

Get to Know Sonia!

• Married, with an amazing 20-year-old son, Kyle, who works at the zoo and whom Sonia believes will be the next Jack Hanna!

• Enjoys listening to books on Audible while walking. “I’m a nonfiction junkie and love Tony Robbins.”

• Best friends since high school freshman year with Sonja, yes, another one. The two are travel buddies. A post CS Week 2024 spring girls trip saw them cruising the Bahamas.

Sonia continues, “I’m an ambassador for IUCX in a couple ways. #1, I try to raise awareness by being on the PC and letting people at Southern Company Gas know about those activities. #2, I take what I’ve learned and actively attribute it to the Conference so my team of three, plus peers and bosses can see I’m applying what I learned.”