Standard exception management in SAP CR&B is no easy task. And when American Water deployed an integrated SAP solution in 2013 with the aim of improving operational efficiency, they were aware of the dip in productivity that utilities typically face after go-live. With customer service at the center of everything they do, American Water implemented a solution that enabled them to transform their customer satisfaction levels and effectively resolve exceptions and exception-related problems.

1. About the Customer
How a major US utility is leveraging
exception management software
in its business transformation and
continuous improvement initiatives

2. Withheadquartersin
Voorhees,NJ,theyare
thelargestpubliclytraded
waterandwastewater
utilitycompanyinthe
UnitedStates.
American Water is a public utility
company operating in the United
States and Canada. It was founded in
1886 as the American Water Works
& Guarantee Company and in 1947
was reorganized as American Water
Works Company, Inc.
AmericanWater,through
itssubsidiaries,provides
high-qualitywaterand
wastewaterservicesto
approximately15million
peopleinmorethan45
states,aswellaspartsof
Canada.
About the Customer

3. About the Customer
5.4m
calls annually
from regulated
customer base
5.4m
invoices
generated
annually
400K
pieces of incoming
correspondence
handled annually6,400
employees15m
people provided
with high-quality
water and waste
services
45
states serviced
in US and part
of Canada
$

4. The
Challenge

5. The Challenge
In 2013, American Water deployed an
integrated SAP solution including HR, Supply
Chain, Finance, Engineering & Construction,
Field Operations and Customer Service. This
solution replaced end-of life systems that
lacked necessary integration and had been
heavily customized.
The goal was to do this and improve operational
efficiency. However, American Water was
aware of the typical challenges that other
companies that have experience with similar
system implementations SAP CR&B for Utilities
– specifically that productivity could dip for a
period of time after go-live.
Engineering &
Construction
HR
Supply
Chain
Field
Operations
Customer
Service
Finance

6. About the Customer
For a period of time after go-live companies initially experience
increases in:
customer call volume, average handle time to complete customer requests,
and more customer complaints
estimated meter readings
customer accounts that do not bill and/or print during their expected
billing cycle and require some kind of manual intervention to complete
the number of implausibles/exceptions that block
business processes from being completed (e.g. billing)
ineffectively scheduled field work resulting in missing due
dates and appointments

7. About the Customer
Standard exception management in SAP CR&B
is no easy task.
In particular, after a CIS deployment, average
resolution times for handling customer issues
and inquiries typically causes a backlog of
exceptions and then late billing issues start to
appear.
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8. About the Customer
This becomes a counter-productive cycle;
with more customers calling, the larger the
exception backlog gets.
American Water wanted to mitigate these
common impacts of exception processing in
SAP. Their goal was to improve customer
satisfaction and on-time billing, not make it
worse.
With 5.4 Million calls received from their
regulated customer base, 37 Million invoices
generated annually and 400,000 pieces of
incoming correspondence every year, it was
all too easy for things to quickly escalate at an
alarming rate.
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9. About the Customer
SAP’sout-of-theboxapproachto
exceptionsmanagementisunintuitive
andtherelianceonpaperreports
makesitdifficulttotrackcustomerissue
resolution.
Plus,it’sdifficulttomonitortheon-time
billingprocess.
AmericanWaterunderstandtheriskof
limitedvisibilityintheirexceptionhandling
process.
American Water was worried about the
impact of a new system deployment on
their customers and needed to ensure
that customer service and on-time,
accurate billing would be improved over
time rather than degraded.
The ability to have a holistic view of all
exception activity for the meter to cash
process was critical to meeting this goal.
meter cash

10. The
Solution
What did American Water do?

11. The Solution
American Water opted for a
customer-centric approach to
exception management - with
one easy-to-use holistic view of all
exceptions and transactions.

12. The Solution
They enhanced their call handling
success by equipping CSRs
with visibility into exception
management actions and in turn,
deflected inquiries about the
status of billing issue resolution.

13. The Solution
Not only is American Water now resolving
exceptions faster, they are enforcing the link
between exceptions and their root cause, with
underlying issues identified and fixed once.
Multiple touches of the same contract account are
limited as a result of the customer-centric view.

14. The Solution
“The intuitive nature of the BDEx solution aided in the
training for SAP CR&B and reduced training for 104 billing
department employees by 520 hours. Back office employees
adapted quicker to the new system by using BDEx’s menu
driven navigation within ECC. We were able to accomplish
our customer goals, in part, by providing employees with an
intuitive exception management tool.”
Tammy MacLaughlin
CIS Lead on SAP Business Transformation Program

15. The Solution
“With the holistic view across the organization, our front-line
customer service representatives can quickly see the status
of bills, and any reasons behind delays. While billing issues and
delays are inevitable with a new system roll out, we were able
to create visibility for our CSRs so they could more effectively
respond to the customer inquiries. This lowered stress for
our front-line employees and reduced the need to hand-off
inquiries to back office staff.”
Meg Neafsey
Vice President of Customer Service

16. What does
this mean to
American Water?

17. What does this mean to American Water?
American Water is able to more effectively resolve the
exceptions that lead to billing delays within a short time frame.
On average 6,000 billing related exceptions are now resolved
on a daily basis allowing for associated invoices to be released
within 3 days of meter reading, with 98% of customer billing
issued within 24 hours of meter reading.
6,000billing related
exceptions
3 days
98%bills issued
24hours

18. What does this mean to American Water?
American Water is getting better
at delivering on their core value
of customer service. Their
front line customer service
representatives have more
information at their fingertips.
When coupled with American
Water’s continuous improvement
culture, they are introducing
processes to reduce the number
of hand-offs to back office staff
– contributing toward positive
customer satisfaction and improved
first contact resolution rates.

19. As they move through stabilization of the SAP
implementation, CSRs will receive further
training using information that can be derived
from the holistic view of exception activity.
Things like:
What does this mean to American Water?
Proactively resolving
consecutively
estimated billing
Providing the status
and expected
resolution time of a
customer billing issue
Understanding and
responding to high
bill inquiries with
confidence

20. American Water is benefiting from additional reporting including:
What does this mean to American Water?
A status report of the
total number and type
of exception cases
that have occurred
Trending exception
activity for root
cause analysis
A productivity report
tracing the productivity
of all back office agents –
the work carried out and
time taken to complete
– to give indication of
performance

21. The robust nature of the solution has also given
American Water a sense of accomplishment.
The business functions it supports directly
affect the level of service delivered to
customers and ultimately the bottom line.
Employees report a high degree of satisfaction
in using the BDEx application and quickly realized
the value it provided to account investigations
and exception resolution.
“This off the shelf, SAP-
centric solution was the
perfect choice. As well
as making the service to
the end customer more
efficient, BDEx has given
us speed to value with
a nice, clean solution
implemented quickly
and easily.”
Tom Slook
Chief Enterprise Architect, ITS
What does this mean to American Water?

22. How is BDEx helping
American Water
transform customer
satisfaction?

23. American Water implemented BDEx from
Basis Technologies across two systems,
CRM and IS-U.
Following a recommendation from
American Water’s Solution Implementer,
Basis Technologies was a core part of the
program, joining at the beginning of the
blueprinting phase, and installing BDEx
before going live in May 2013.
How is BDEx helping American Water
transform customer satisfaction?
IS-U
CRM

24. BDEx has been utilized across four key areas
of high volume customer-facing transactions
across the American Water landscape:
“Looking at the high
volume of transactions,
we knew that we would
need the right tool to
help support us and
effectively manage
exception activity across
some of our key process
areas. BDEx has met
that expectation and
more. ”
Tammy MacLaughlin
CIS Lead on SAP Business Transformation
Program
How is BDEx helping American Water
transform customer satisfaction?
Service Order
follow up
actions
Collections
Billing
Device
Management

25. How is BDEx helping American Water
transform customer satisfaction?
“At the end of the day, it’s all to help get information
out of the door to our customers.
It’s what our customers expect of us and it’s what we deliver
with assistance from BDEx.”
Meg Neafsey
Vice President of Customer Service
Everything we do is customer-centric.
Timely, accurate billing means enhanced
customer satisfaction.

26. About the Customer
BDEx
part of BDiApps
basistechnologies.com