Redefining customer service_for_utilities_running_sap

basistechnologies.com
A Basis Technologies white paperA Basis Technologies white paper
Redefiningcustomer
serviceforutilities
runningSAP
The balance of power is changing
Today’s smartphone carrying consumers are a far cry from the
utility customers of old. Sure, there are still consumers out there
who don’t have the Internet, an iPhone, or a Facebook account.
But they are becoming fewer and farther between as the
months and years roll by.
The fact is the majority of consumers - from 18 to 80-plus - are
switched on and connected via email, SMS, smartphones, and
social media. And it’s changing their expectations of how they
should be treated. Driven by their experiences with born-digital
companies and visionary retailers, they not only expect to
interact with companies through multiple channels, they also
expect to be treated as individuals. And they know the power of
their opinion is important. With one tweet or Facebook message
they can potentially influence thousands of followers.
Faced with this situation, utility companies cannot stand still.
With the balance of power increasingly shifting towards the
consumer, they have to find a way to increase levels of customer
service and satisfaction. And it makes sense to do so. Because
the same technologies that are shifting the balance of power
also offer utility companies opportunities to drive greater energy
efficiency, reduce costs, and increase revenues.
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A Basis Technologies white paper
2.7%
Theamountcustomer
satisfactionwithgasand
electricserviceproviders
isdownin2015(anACSI
scoreof74.3outofa
possible100).
In order to achieve greater energy
efficiency, reduce costs, and increase
revenues, utilities need to develop four
key characteristics…
Customers expect us to provide services that match
the retail experience at companies like Amazon and
Apple, especially the millennial generation, because
that’s what they’re used to.”
John Hoffman, Customer Service Operations Manager,
Tacoma Public Utilities
“
Convenience
Cohesion
Comprehension
Communication
1
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1. Convenience
We live in the ‘instant’ age. Consumers expect to do what they
want, when they want it. If they want to order a refrigerator in the
middle of the night, they can do it. If they want to track the status
of their Amazon delivery at the airport, they can. If they want to
check the football scores while in a meeting, no problem.
Offset call center functions
Self-service is fast and convenient for customers. It enables
them to get answers to common questions and carry out routine
actions quickly, which is why it is a great opportunity for utility
companies to offset many of the functions the call center would
have dealt with before.
Through features such as online account management, online
messaging assistance, and social media communications, utility
companies can put consumers in control of their customer
journey by allowing them to carry out actions such as giving meter
readings, changing tariffs, or making payments, and getting
the answers to frequently asked questions. And many utilities
companies are already well on the way to achieving this level of
self-service.
For example, UK energy provider nPower has a clear strategy of
moving more and more transactions to self-service. At present,
these include bill production, changes to payment, and switching
products. In the future, they expect to fully automate all the
processes and activities involved when a customer moves house.
“Aswegoonour
journeytobedigital
first,there’san
increasingdemand
fromourcustomer
basetobeabletoself-
serveanddothingsin
acoherentway.”
Tim Stothart, Head
of Change, Domestic
Business, nPower
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Improve productivity
With self-service, utilities companies gain a double benefit.
Not only can they increase customer satisfaction, they can
also improve productivity and reduce expenditure. At a time
when operational costs are rising, any help to lower costs –
and reduce price increases – is very welcome.
Beware the end of easy
However, there is a knock-on effect that utility companies
forget at their peril. By their very nature, self-service facilities
focus on the easy to answer questions and easy to undertake
actions. Which means the call center is left with the difficult
questions and actions and, quite likely, the most upset
customers.
As a result, it is vital that agents are not only provided with a
comprehensive, customer-centric view of all the back office,
front office, and operational system information they need to
answer queries, but are also given the tools that enable them
to take the appropriate actions.
Resolve complaints
Complaints can come through any channel. But, whichever
channel they come through, they need to be routed to the
best person to handle them and resolved quickly. Once again,
the key is having a realtime central view of all the information
relating to the complaint and the tools to take action.
>50% of US online consumers will abandon
their online purchase if they cannot find a
quick answer to their questions.2
“BDExbringssignificant
valuebyprovidingthe
customer-centricview
ofallthecases,which
iscriticallyimportant.
Withjustaclickauser
canhaveaccessto
menuoptionsthatcan
quicklyresolvethe
cases.”
Tammy MacLaughlin, CIS
Release Lead- Business
Transformation Program,
American Water
>50%
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The increase in the number of channels customers can use to
engage with utility companies brings its own difficulties. The
customer’s journey is no longer straightforward. Consumers will
each have their preferred channels of communication and they
will swap between them depending on what they are trying to
achieve.
Of course this doesn’t mean that all services have to be offered
through every channel. In fact, research at Tacoma Public
Utilities has shown that customers are willing to move channels,
for example from mobile apps to the web, to access more
services.
Utilities need to view the customer as more than just a meter.
The challenge is to provide a consistent and personalized level
of service at each touch point. Customer patience can quickly
wear thin if they are either continuously asked for the same
information or connected to a source that cannot provide them
with the answers - or take the actions - they require.
Successful customer channel cohesion depends on being able
to pool information from front office, back office, supervisory
control and data acquisition (SCADA), and operational systems
and making it available to everyone who may need it – web
teams, call center agents, maintenance crews, store associates,
and online help.
2. Cohesion
70%
expect
customer-
facingstaffto
befullyaware
ofalltheirpast
interactions.3
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3. Comprehension
58%
ofcompanies
inconsistently
measureorfail
tomeasuretheir
customer’scross-
channeljourney.
Today’s connected customers are individuals with their own
aspirations and needs, and they expect to be treated as
such. And, with the tools that are currently available, utility
companies have unprecedented opportunities to gain a greater
understanding of their customers than they have ever had
before.
Social media
Analysis of social media provides opportunities to both
understand consumer trends in general and identify individual
needs. For example, conversations on Twitter or Facebook can
quickly alert customer service managers to outages, billing
irregularities, network problems, or dissatisfaction with specific
functions.
On a wider front, sentiment analysis can be used to gauge
satisfaction with products and services far more accurately than
the statistical surveys of the past.
Journey tracking
As customers move across channels, it is perfectly possible to
track their actions and build a picture of individual consumer
behavior. Based on this and the behavior of other, similar
customers, marketing professionals can determine the next-
best action to offer them. It may be information, a new tariff, an
additional product, or a promotion, but the important point is that
it is tailored to their requirements.
4
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Smart metering
In terms of improving customer service, smart metering is
probably the single, biggest development ever.
From the consumer standpoint, smart meters combined with
in-home energy displays allow them to track their consumption
more accurately, plan and budget more effectively and, as a
result, save money. Crucially, with more accurate and up-to-date
information, bills should be more accurate.
For utility companies the benefits are equally large. For the first
time, they can obtain detailed information about each and every
customers’ consumption. If a smart meter returns a reading
every half hour, that’s 17,500 data points a year. Analyzing it will
require systems that can crunch numbers fast.
But the potential is huge and the best results will be obtained
when the data is merged with front and back office information.
Then companies will be able to segment customers more
accurately, and make more informed decisions about everything
from new pricing plans to advertising, marketing campaigns, and
offers.
Better comprehension drives better service
Through analysis of its customer base, nPower established that the shape of
its portfolio was changing. Fixed price contracts were becoming extremely
popular. However, as a result, there were massive peaks in activity when
contracts expired and consumers needed to switch to a new offering.
Knowing this, nPower was able to beef up its back-end processing capability
to comfortably meet the peak in workload and avoid customer problems.
52%
ofcompaniessay
Facebookisthe
mosteffective
channelfor
customerservice.5
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Personal and proactive communication is essential to providing
superior customer service. With a central repository of data
and information garnered from social media, journey tracking
and smart metering, utility companies can ensure they deliver
personalized, relevant, and timely information via the consumers
preferred channel – email, SMS, social media etc.
Proactive communications about outages have long been a
bugbear for consumers but, with data available from SCADA and
operational systems, it will become easier to provide updates
about the estimated time to repair and progress.
With today’s solutions for predicting the failure of infrastructure
elements, unexpected outages can be significantly reduced.
However, there will still be the need to provide information about
planned service disruptions and their progress. In addition, in
many geographies, extreme weather conditions will inevitably
mean unplanned outages. Proactively keeping consumers
informed about progress towards resuming supply will not only
alleviate dissatisfaction, it will also substantially reduce enquiries
to the call center.
Utility companies also have an opportunity to improve
consumer perception, by communicating when they have
proactively averted potential service disruptions or made
service improvements.
Data from smart meters gives utility companies the opportunity
to monitor consumers’ consumption and make suggestions for
changing their tariffs or pricing plans to be more cost effective.
Finally, with unprecedented insights into consumer behavior
and preferences, utility companies have the ability to proactively
deliver marketing offers that are personal and appropriate to
consumers’ situations.
4. Communication
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Developing these characteristics and delivering superior
customer service involves every aspect of a utility
company’s business – from engineering to finance,
marketing to operations, the call center to IT.
Consequently, it is too important to be owned by one
department. The drive to excel at customer service must
come from the very top of the organization and cascade
down to every employee. It must be instilled as a core
principle of the company’s ethos.
It cannot be done in a piecemeal fashion either.
Disconnected efforts will result in fragmented systems and
processes and be counter productive. The starting point
must be an overall company vision, which provides a guiding
principle for all the initiatives that will need to take place to
achieve it.
In order to create the customer visibility and end-to-end
processes needed to deliver service excellence, utility
companies will need to amalgamate information and
integrate business processes across:
• Back office systems - to access core billing, payment
and financial information
• Front-end systems - to understand and act on
customer behavior and preferences
• SCADA and operational systems - to understand
consumption and anticipate and plan service
disruptions.
Key steps to success
| |

When you talk about communication, comprehension,
cohesion, or convenience, all of them are underpinned
by a well run, well functioning back office, where data
flow management is exemplary and exceptions are
processed in an accurate and timely manner.”
Tim Stothart, Head of Change, Domestic Business, nPower
“
In fact, the importance of back office systems cannot be over-
emphasized. Both Tim Stothart at nPower and John Hoffman
at Tacoma Public Utilities agree they are the foundation of
exceptional customer service.
nPower, for example, has invested heavily in tools that support
getting its back end processes working correctly, making sure
its data is accurate, data flows are effectively managed, and
exceptions are handled correctly. For Tim Stothart the back end
is the engine room of the company and if it doesn’t run effectively
then customer experiences will inevitably suffer.
At Tacoma Public Utilties the situation is very similar. The
company has focused on making sure its back end processes are
producing good data, and processing bills and customer accounts
as fast as possible. As John Hoffman says: “It doesn’t matter how
aesthetically pleasing the consumer portal is, if the information in
it is incorrect.”
| |

Satisfying consumers’ escalating expectations requires utilities
companies to up their game and acquire the four key characteristics
for superior customer service highlighted in this report. Achieving
that will depend on being able to successfully integrate existing
IT systems to provide a complete view of customer behavior and
preferences, and end-to-end processes that support effective
operations. For those that can achieve it the rewards will be high –
increased revenue, lower costs, and higher customer satisfaction.
Conclusion increased
revenue
lower
costs
higher
customer
satisfaction
superior
customer
service =
| |


BDEx Customer Centric Hub
If you run SAP for Utilities - including IS-U, CRB, CCS and
FI-CA - you’ll more than likely know about exceptions. Every
exception in your SAP system is a cost. It costs time and
effort to investigate and, left unresolved, impacts customer
satisfaction and revenue recovery.
The Customer Centric Hub is the only tool that presents all
relevant information from IS-U and CRB along with other
information linked to the customer – like - in a single, realtime
transaction enabling faster investigation and significant
savings and agent productivity.

Blade – Late Bill Analytics
Late billing can lead to crippling loss of revenue, high levels of
complaints and even breaches in regulations.
Blade rapidly extracts data from some of the largest database
tables in IS-U and CRB, quickly identifying all late billed
customers and providing the estimated locked revenue.
Using this report provides your business with a fast effective
method of discovering your late bill problem and a starting
point to tackle the underlying root causes.
About Basis Technologies
“ImplementingBDEx
islikegoingfrom
beingpartiallysighted
tohavingfullvision,
becauseyoucan
seetheconnection
betweenallthe
exceptions,youcan
seehowtheyhang
together,andyoucan
seethefullproblem
onthecustomer’s
account.”
TimStothart,Head
ofChange,Domestic
Business,nPower
At Basis Technologies we help companies make their SAP platform work harder
and smarter - and put it on the same mission as the rest of the business. In short,
we can change the way companies run their SAP system. Our specific solutions
for the Utilities industry include the following:
| |


Astrolabe – Exception Analytics
Exceptions significantly interrupt business processes and can
negatively impact the customer experience.
Exception analytics provide insight into the exceptions resident
within the SAP system and the customer affected, pulling
together an aggregated view of all open and outstanding IS-U
and CRB specific exception types across the business.

Torch – Tolerance Optimizer
It can be a difficult balance to find the optimal settings for
tolerance configuration in SAP for utilities.
Torch provides the ability to model the tolerance changes
before they are made, allowing you to analyze and model
different tolerance limits before adjusting them and
automatically closing or releasing the affected implausible or
outsorts.
“IloveTorch.By
usingitwecan
figureoutifour
thresholdsand
settingsmake
senseorwhether
we’regenerating
unnecessarywork
andreview.It’sa
greattool.”
John Hoffman,
Customer Service
Operations
Manager, Tacoma
Public Utilities
86% of buyers will pay more for a better
customer experience according to a CEI
survey 686%
| |

To learn more about how we can help you deliver
superior customer service please use one of the
methods below to get in touch.
Call +1 703 476 4565
Email info@basistechnologies.com
Follow
Sources
1. Source: American Customer Satisfaction Index 2015
2. Trends 2015: The Future Of Customer Service, Kate
Leggett, Forrester, March 2, 2015
3. Improving customer experience in the omnichannel
age.
4. Trends 2015: The Future Of Customer Service, Kate
Leggett, Forrester, March 2, 2015
5. Social Media Today, The Social Customer
Engagement Index 2014
6. SAP Slideshare
©BasisTechnologiesInternationalLtd.,2015.Allrightsreserved.Thisdocument
isnon-contractual.eoe.5425_Utilites_WP
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