A Revolution in Customer Care

 

THE AGE OLD ADAGE, "THE customer is king," now rings true at many utilities. "Utilities have been progressing from using their customer information systems to answer billing questions to leveraging them to run their businesses more efficiently," said Zarko Sumic, a vice president with Gartner's energy and utilities industry advisory service.

Because technology has been evolving at a rapid pace, utilities can now use these systems to service their customers in new ways. Recent advances enable them to gain better visibility into their customers' payment histories, reduce maintenance by relying on cloud-based customer service applications, cut costs by empowering customers to examine their account information themselves, support mobile devices, and use social networking sites to keep customers abreast of service outages. To stay current, energy companies will need to understand these new gold-standard capabilities and then determine how to upgrade their customer service systems so they support them.

Traditionally, energy customers have been a captive audience, one that is unable to change service providers. Consequently, the bulk of the calls that have come into energy company call centers have focused on billing questions, such as, "Did you receive my payment?" "What is my current balance?" and "How much of a penalty will a late payment induce?"

With the economy in a tailspin, a growing number of consumers have had trouble staying current with their payments. Consequently, vendors have been adding tools so utilities can proactively monitor late payments and prod customers to meet payment due dates. For instance, customer service software suppliers have been linking interactive voice response units - computers that leave voice messages - to their billing systems so utilities can place calls that alert customers about impending payment problems.

This change delivers a couple of benefits. First, it frees time for contact center agents so they can focus on customers in such severe delinquency that they are in danger of having their service disconnected. Timelier payments are another benefit. "Financial advisers were telling our customers to pay their utility bills last, which resulted in some of them having their energy turned off," explained Aundrea Jackson, manager of the customer access center at Puget Sound Energy, which provides electrical power to more than 1 million customers and natural gas services to in excess of 800,000 consumers in the Pacific Northwest area.

Rather than wait to call customers once their bills had reached the delinquency stage, the utility tweaked its Varolii Payment Processing system and started calling customers as soon as a payment was late. Many customers returned the calls and were able to work out various payment plans, including automated payments, so their energy remained on and the utility eventually collected its revenue.

LOOK UP TO THE CLOUD

Cloud computing has become quite popular. In fact, market research firm Gartner pegged worldwide spending on cloud services at $68.3 billion last year, a 16.6 percent increase from 2009 revenue of $58.6 billion. In 2014, the company expects that number to reach $148.8 billion.

So what is cloud computing and why is it generating so much interest? Here, vendors rely on Internet connections to provide computing resources such as software, computing power and storage to customers. One reason for its popularity is that it offloads routine maintenance functions such as upgrades and software patches from a utility to its software vendor. The change enables energy companies to cap their IT support costs.

Salesforce.com was one of the first software suppliers to use this approach, and its customer service system has proven to be quite popular. Enernoc supplies energy management IT solutions to more than 8,200 companies worldwide. The company had a homegrown customer service system but decided to look for a commercial system a few years ago. After looking at a handful of products, Enernoc opted for Salesforce.com. "We liked the flexibility that a cloud-based system offered," said Gregg Dixon, senior vice president of marketing at the energy software supplier.

People power is the main cost in energy companies' customer service centers. Estimates are that an electronic bill costs one-tenth as much to process as a paper bill. In addition, a few days pass as the paper bill makes its way from the customer's home to the utility whereas electronic transactions happen instantly. The same economics hold true for calls to a service center where customers ask about service availability or the process of starting and stopping service. Consequently, utilities have been trying to prod their customers to trade in their paper communications for electronic interactions.

One challenge is that consumers have a variety of ways to interact with utilities: They can enter information on various devices, including laptops, PCs and smartphones, and use different communication channels such as online, e-mail, instant messaging and, in some cases, video conferencing. "Utilities are trying to offer consumers more automated customer service options," said Gartner's Sumic.

For example, PSE has rolled out My PSE Account, an online system whereby customers pay bills, manage accounts, report an outage, find ways to cut their energy costs, and start or stop service. Currently, about 250,000 customers use the service, and the utility would like to increase that number. "We are constantly communicating with our customers and trying to make our online services more attractive," said PSE's Jackson.

SUPPORT FOR MOBILE DEVICES

On a related note, computer processing power has become smaller and more compact. Consequently, individuals rely on smartphones, such as Apple's iPhone and Google's Android system, to access important information. This change holds true in the customer service realm. Increasingly, vendors are making it possible for consumers to access their billing and account information via their smartphones.

However, diversity is the challenge for software suppliers. Vendors, such as Apple, Motorola and Samsung, have been constantly developing new cell phones. Each time a new model emerges, the software vendor has to tweak its system to support it.

Compounding that challenge, smartphones could be the next way for consumers to pay their bills. Cell phone technology has been evolving, so these devices can function as portable credit cards, and utilities such as PSE are now evaluating how to take advantage of those emerging features.

Whenever an outage occurs, utilities want to notify customers ASAP. "Twitter is becoming a common way for utilities to notify customers about outages," said Denis Pombriant, managing principal at Beagle Research Group.

When an outage occurs, one challenge is finding a means to contact customers. Twitter has become a common way for individuals and, increasingly, companies, to send and receive short text messages to one another. In fact, the service has garnered 175 million registered users worldwide.

One benefit with this approach is that interested individuals establish contact with a utility rather than vice versa. If a company experiences an outage, it can post a note on its Web site, so individuals will receive updates on their Twitter accounts. This avenue is faster and more efficient than calling or even e-mailing customers when a problem arises.

Technology has become a key factor in the success or failure of many businesses and it is now having a significant impact on how energy companies service their customers. "The customer service market has been changing and utilities have to keep pace or they will find themselves left behind by competitors," concluded Beagle Research Group's Pombriant.