Electrical utilities today are facing a variety of new challenges, including cultivating more positive relationships with both their commercial and consumer customers. Deregulation, industry consolidation, and increasing environmental concerns are only a few of the issues fueling the drive for improved public relations. And these are on top of the ongoing requirements to respond to routine billing and service questions, while managing crisis situations like power outages due to natural causes or other unexpected service interruptions. Yet, customer expectations are on the rise and many electric utilities are frustrated by the unrelenting pressure and perceived costly effort needed to solve these challenges.

The customer relationship management (CRM) challenges energy companies confront today differ from those of other industries, though they are similar to the issues now-competitive financial services and telecommunications companies faced many years ago. Few utilities have a “lock” on being irreplaceable as the regional provider of electricity. The privileges utilities may enjoy as suppliers of indispensable resources come with heavy compliance requirements and the obligation to prove diligence in fulfilling their mission. Similar to companies in highly competitive industries, utilities today must be compelled to differentiate themselves by offering and communicating customer-relevant products and services, and implementing state-of-the-art systems to meet or exceed customer service expectations.

Utilities’ IT focus has traditionally been dedicated to customer information systems solely to meet billing needs. In order to improve the customer experience, however, it is imperative that utilities leverage this critical system to capture relevant information about the customer in order to deliver more relevant and quality communications. The next step is actually using that information to most effectively impact the business.

The central challenge
Typically, a utility operates siloed customer content and communication systems built upon the needs of specialized business units: sales, marketing, billing, and customer service. Each unit may have its own back-end systems and processes, as well as different output requirements—including printed and electronic invoices, printed direct mail or other marketing pieces, and both printed and online correspondence for customers and the call center. Consistency and content accuracy are nearly impossible to achieve if the communication systems aren’t integrated. Additionally, in order for communications to be corporate compliant and created relevantly for each customer and with the most up-to-date information, the system(s) must be able to interact in real time with centralized content management and other corporate systems. Many of the systems that exist in utilities today do not support these integrated capabilities.

Mergers and acquisitions just magnify the complexity of this situation. While an acquisition expands a utility’s service area capabilities and number of customers, a newly-acquired operating facility has its own legacy and CIS systems that may or may not be compatible with the acquiring organization’s IT infrastructure.

In a 2004 survey conducted by UtiliPoint International, Inc., more than 20 percent of the 300 participating utilities identified “flexibility” as the one feature they would change in their current customer communication system. Another top choice was “user friendliness.” At the bottom of the list was“price”—chosen by less than 5 percent of those responding. This was especially true of utilities serving more than 500,000 customers. More than 45 percent of these larger organizations wanted communications systems with the flexibility to interface with all corporate systems so information could be shared across both geographic and organizational boundaries. They also wanted more flexibility and “user friendliness” to be able to respond faster to changing demands as their businesses evolved.

Based on this feedback, what utilities need is an enterprise document automation software solution that provides a wide range of capabilities, supports multiple platforms, and integrates easily with existing applications and legacy systems.

Enterprise document automation
Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE) implemented an enterprise document automation solution to achieve this type of flexibility. In a move to divest itself of non-core operations, the utility decided to shut down its in-house printing facility and partner with an outside print provider. At the same time, BGE wanted to retain control over the content, formatting, ongoing changes, and required regulatory information that went into its customer communications.

The technology selected provides the design independence BGE wanted, allowing its in-house staff to build applications without having to learn specialized programming code or skills. It also allows for simultaneous retrieval and dynamic processing of variable data and content from multiple information sources—from comma-delimited files and other formats to its CIS, CRM, and ERP systems.

BGE initially implemented its enterprise document automation solution to redesign and update its customer invoices. Based on surveys, they deleted information customers indicated they no longer needed, modified the font size, and printed the new bills on both sides of the page, which significantly reduced printing and postage costs. BGE’s new system pulls relevant data from several different sources and assembles it according to specified design rules. Apart from promoting increased customer comprehension and satisfaction, these relatively simple changes in invoice design have saved BGE $297,000 per year in printing and postage costs alone.

Other utilities are also leveraging the capabilities of this enterprise document automation solution to develop invoices specifically targeted for their consumer or commercial clients, showing different types of usage data through charts and highlighting other information so customers can more easily track and plan their activities for improved cost savings and efficient energy use. The technology’s ability to construct customized tables and charts from customer data is a highly effective tool many organizations have used to clarify hard-to-understand usage data.

A monthly meeting with customers
Most utilities already recognize the value of the monthly statement as a communications tool on several levels. The bill is the one mail item that customers are likely to open and read carefully. Innovative utilities incorporate useful information on their monthly statements, such as tips for conserving energy to help customers control their usage and costs. But with the right enterprise document automation solution, the bill itself can be tailored and customized to meet specific needs of the individual customer.

Most utilities offer some type of “complex billing” product with favorable pricing to customers who are willing to vary the amount and frequency of their payments according to wholesale market changes. The monthly invoice can be an effective vehicle for announcing incentives to encourage use of these programs for both businesses and consumers, even if the programs are available only seasonally or on relatively short notice. Utilities need an enterprise document automation solution that can collect and process information from many different systems and data sources on-the-fly to make this possible.

Another important way of ensuring that customers thoroughly understand their bills, as well as a highly effective way to establish more positive customer relationships, is to speak to customers in their own language. The nation’s Hispanic population has risen by 60 percent over the last 10 years—a trend that is expected to continue in certain geographic areas. The right enterprise document automation solution will allow utilities to produce invoices and other communications in any language and, using contextual settings and business rules, format dates, currencies, and other language-dependent invoice information accordingly. The solution should also provide a spell checker for foreign languages.

Multi-channel delivery
Migrating paper billing to electronic channels is a current trend among innovative utilities, allowing them to speed delivery of accurate information while saving costs in printing and mailing. The shift to electronic bill presentment and payment is being deployed in a variety of ways, often by sending an email notification to the customer that the electronic invoice is ready for download. Some utilities have achieved higher levels of customer acceptance by delivering both hard copy and electronic invoices for a limited “trial period” before moving exclusively to electronic channels. It is vital to implement a software solution that supports output for multiple print and electronic channels from a single design. The right solution will also accommodate multi-channel delivery based on both business and customer preferences.

Call center support
Of course, the right enterprise document automation solution must also support call centers’ online retrieval needs for the most current customer bills and information. The right solution will impact the call center in two important ways. First, bills that are clearer and easier to understand will reduce the number of calls from customers requesting explanations of their bill. Second, call center employees will be better equipped to provide quality customer care because of their improved ability to access current bills and the relevant information they need. Additionally, the right provider for automated document solutions will allow representatives to print duplicate bills on the spot, or instantly send the customer a copy in PDF format.

Customized marketing
Though utilities have traditionally been given a bad rap with regard to customer service and acquisition initiatives, the more marketing-savvy ones are using the monthly invoice and other customer communications as a way to update their image, re-create themselves as customer-centered, and inspire customer loyalty. Cleaner, more effective design supports this effort, along with personalized and relevant marketing messages incorporated directly into the bill and other communications.

Personalization is no longer confined to name and address, units of energy consumed, and geographic area based on zip code. Smart marketers—and utilities seeking to differentiate themselves—are using customer data to develop new products targeted for specific buyers. As in the case of the complex billing programs mentioned above, invoices can convey marketing information crafted to appeal to the requirements of a specific audience, including an audience of one.

With the right enterprise document automation solution, marketers should be able to define rules that trigger personalized messages and images to be incorporated into communications based on the recipient—whether a large or small energy user, a business or consumer, a homeowner or renter, or a community institution, non-profit organization, school or university. The marketer should also be able to ensure corporate branding standards are maintained across communications sent out by the utility.

Regulatory compliance
Utilities face daily challenges to comply with changing state and local regulations they are required to communicate to all or some of their customers. Here too, it is important that utilities implement an enterprise document automation platform that supports these shifting requirements easily and automatically. It should be easy to modify compliance content, including effective dates, for dynamic insertion into documents at the time of processing. The right enterprise document automation solution will house the compliant content centrally and automate changes on all the documents in which the content must appear.

In summary
Although the idea behind automation is to make life a little easier, we all know that isn’t always the case—at least initially. Utilities are strapped with traditional systems and processes to support a large number of customers, ensuring uninterrupted billing and service. Unfortunately, this has fostered siloed systems and data sources for customer communications that make it very difficult for utilities to achieve increased internal productivity while improving the customer experience. And, of course, mergers and acquisitions just complicate the situation.

Implementing the right enterprise document automation solution will allow utilities to leverage existing systems and data sources eliminating point solutions and streamlining document related processes, while generating significant cost savings, streamlined operations, and happier customers.

Exstream Software helps organizations of all sizes connect with their customers through higher quality, fully personalized communications.Exstream is on the web at www.exstream.com.

About the Author
Jim Norton is vice president of utilities practice for Exstream Software. Jim Norton’s responsibilities include planning, strategy, new customer acquisition and partnerships. Prior to joining Exstream Software, he was EVP and General Manager of Covast Corporation and Senior Vice President of Sales for Derivion (an Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment company). Mr. Norton has a BA in computer science and mathematics. He began his career with EDS and Texas Instruments.