The White Elephant of Outage Management
A recent visit with a utility customer provided an opportunity to tour their newly renovated 60+ terminal call center, designed to serve a population of more than four million. A snowstorm the prior year prompted this expansion from their original 15 terminals. During that storm, the utility experienced 159,000 calls during the first 24 hours. That call number only includes the calls they were able to successfully answer, which means hundreds of calls were missed because the utility was unprepared and understaffed for that type of customer response. They reported the same customer calling back up to 10 times in search of an update. But viewing the new call center prompted the question— why is this legacy process to manage customer queries still the norm? These 1-to-1 interactions with customers are costly, and far from the most efficient communication channel the utility can use.

Two-thirds of the public prefer self-service/automated channels—and that number continues to grow. This article sheds light on how utilities can leverage this trend by upgrading their current method of outage communication while significantly increasing operational efficiency.

Consumer Demands Prompt New Outage Plan
“When consumers experience an interruption in service, the first thing utilities need to get better at is providing comprehensive information about the outage – including the cause and extent of the outage, when power will be restored, and status of work crews and any equipment that needs to be replaced,” says Jeff Conklin, vice president of J.D. Power’s utility practice. “And the best utilities are now getting proactive with outage information by providing it to the consumer at the contact point of their choice.”

Customers focus on two concerns during an outage: how long until power returns? and how will it impact my life? These questions lead to thoughts of “Will my medication in the fridge be safe?”, “Do I need to pick my child up from school?” or “Will the elevator work at my apartment or am I climbing 16 floors?” This is the new world of consumer engagement, where the customer seeks—and expects— immediate gratification with an immediate response.

The most reliable line of communication to the public during an outage is their mobile phone. The simplest phone can call and send a text message, but nearly eighty percent can access channels such as mobile web, mobile applications, social media, news, etc. Follow that trend, and we will see a near complete saturation of mobile phones with full internet access in North America within thirty six months. For the utility company, this means the customer looks for answers on the channels they interact with daily, especially during an outage. The Baby Boomers and Silent Generation make up thirty percent of the current US population. This group tends to be most comfortable using call centers and IVR as means of communication, but that trend is fading. Forty seven percent of the population make up Generation X and Millennials, who prefer automated or social channels, and consider calling on the phone an old technology. Imagine what the next generation will think. As emerging population’s age, more people will reject call centers and IVR. Instead, stakeholders will elect to use self-service channels, which should be music to the ears of utility personnel. The public wants what utilities want, an efficient and easy way to communicate. Proactive and rich two-way communication offered through interactive channels, voted by customers as the preferred method to communicate, allows the utility to automate the lion’s share of customer engagement so they can shift resources away from customer management and towards restoration efforts. Addressing consumer priorities and preferences defines the goal of the new outage communication plan: to keep all stakeholders apprised of rich, relevant, and timely data so they can react accordingly and provide feedback. To understand how this fits into an outage plan, the new role of each communication channel and the classification and capability of customers as they move through the channels must be addressed.

Prioritizing Communication
Prioritizing communication channels is an easy way to see how customer engagement should flow. If the utility already has some of these channels, like a call center or IVR, it is not necessary to remove them. The same goes with utilities who subscribe to third-party call centers to handle overflow traffic. The objective is to move customers away from costly and inefficient channels and towards those that are self-service and interactive. A large portion of utility customers will naturally find the new interactive platforms either on their own or with a little marketing and direction, but the channels we want to move customers from will still need to migrate those who are familiar with using them. Each call into a call center can average $6 in cost to the utility. The interactive alternative costs pennies per transaction. The new plan reclassifies channels like the call center, IVR, and social media to be used as a funneling tool to the preferred self-service channels. The legacy channels will perform their normal functions, but then suggest the customer sign up for a more automated approach through a web portal, SMS text service, or mobile application. The legacy channels will migrate their customer base, which increases the level of engagement and satisfaction.

The more rich, relevant, and real-time information you serve to the customer, the more answers you provide and the fewer additional questions (callbacks) occur. When customers do not have to spend time locating an Estimated Time of Restoration to decide if dinner will be homemade or fast-food, they can spend time either leaving the utility alone or offering rich data back to the system. Thus begins classifying the customers.

Communication side note: Priority one is building a two-way proactive outage channel to all customers. If limitations prevent you from offering multiple channels, focus on an outage map integrated with SMS text reporting and alerts. SMS can reach even the simplest mobile phones, and outage map links can be shared across nearly all platforms. A mobile optimized outage map is essential, since routers and personal computers typically will not have power or internet access.

Classifying Customers
As customers graduate through the communication channels, they gain additional information and interaction. The three customer classifications are: uninformed, informed, and engaged.

Uninformed Customer
If the utility does not have any type of automatic communication system that pings affected customers during an outage, then 100 percent of their customers are uninformed, and no proactive measures are being taken. That leaves 100% of all affected customers searching to find “how long will the outage last?” and “how will that timeframe affect me?”, but with little knowledge or ability to find the answer(s). The initial engagement between the utility and the customer is typically through the call center, mobile website (because the internet router is down), or social media account. These channels are funnel sites that are used to answer the first question and encourage the user to move to a self-service platform. When users opt-in or naturally find the preferred platforms, such as SMS text, mobile application, or even IVR to an extent, they are considered informed customers and the process is advanced.

Informed Customers
When the lights go out and a customer receives an alert either through SMS text, mobile application, or proactive IVR, those customers are considered informed customers. Proactive IVR is not considered a strong informed channel because the customer can only receive information during the call, and has no history or supporting content. In contrast, SMS texts offer a readable history and the ability to report outages with an embedded outage map web link. An outage map web link gives the customer an additional layer of answers they can review before deciding to call the utility. It is important to exhaust all self-service approaches— especially when we still have utilities sized at over 100,000 meters that must leave all customer calls to the OMS operator after hours because of the lack of manpower. Obviously, smaller utilities have it worse. Once all these customers are on interactive platforms, it is easy to collect information from them. This new layer of real-time information is called customer telemetry. It is how engaged customers are established, and a new communication channel is awarded to the utility.

Engaged Customers
Those who are sharing outage updates with others or providing additional information unknown to the utility (such as reporting damaged field equipment or responding to restoration confirmation alerts) are known as engaged customers. This group is only found on SMS text, mobile applications, or web outage map channels and they have the ability to increase the engagement of uninformed customers by sending easily shared links to their friends and family. These shared links can be set up to customize their content based on the location of the user’s phone, so there is no need to worry about inaccurate information being shared if it goes from one side of the service territory to the other. A large engaged customer base is a great milestone for utilities to achieve.

The changing climate of consumer engagement can be leveraged to increase operational efficiency. The customer channels necessary to realize an appropriate outage communication response and improve customer engagement increase as they migrate to more interactive platforms. As the outage plan unravels, remember the goal: to keep all stakeholders notified with rich, relevant, and timely information so they can react accordingly and provide feedback.

Customer Focused Outage PlanPre-Outage Phase
Pre-Outage Phase
The pre-outage stage is predominately consumed with encouraging customer adoption of outage communication channels (building the informed and engaged crowd), educating broadcasting agencies how to access and disseminate information, and upgrading utility procedures to support an effective outage communication plan. The best approach to customer adoption of outage channels is to incorporate them with blue sky functions such as billing, budget, and energy efficiency solutions. Local news and radio agencies are great disseminators of information and should be brought into the communication conversation early. Offering benefits for participating and providing easy to find information, such as an interactive outage map, provide incentives to customers so that when outages occur, they become an extra voice pushing the channels that feed back to the utility. Within the utility, it is advantageous to make sure employees understand the benefits that comes with the new approach.

The steps to accomplish the pre-outage phase include:

1. Developing informed and engaged customers through marketing
   • Push the public towards adopting proactive outage update platforms such as SMS, IVR, and mobile application
2. Developing 3rd party funnels
   • Direct 3rd party funnel sites, like broadcast agencies, to self-service channels so they can spread adoption
3. Change Management Culture (implementing internal change)
   • Rewrite operational procedures to follow the channel flowchart
   • Explain the benefit of the new procedures to employees
   • Train utility personnel on new responsibilities and emphasize the importance of outage management roles

Outage Phase
During an outage, the utility’s goal is to keep all stakeholders informed so they can react accordingly and provide feedback. This also includes keeping all funnel channels available to find uninformed customers and pull them into the communication flow. Especially during extended outages, frequent and personal content is key to containing public nerves. A typical outage contains three alerts: outage confirmation, estimated restoration time, and restoration confirmation. Encouraging the informed crowd to share an outage link with friends and family or report any damaged field equipment is a great platform additive. This time should be taken to manage all the channels so they are used to their maximum capability/reach. Routinely checking into 3rd party funnels and encouraging them to share the interactive channels is also necessary during an outage.

To successfully implement the outage phase:

1. Update and encourage sharing and reporting with an informed crowd
   • Send proactive information to informed customers to keep them satisfied
   • Encourage informed customers to share alert links with friends and family
   • Educate customers on self-reporting, including the value of responding to restoration confirmation alerts and reporting damaged equipment
2. Create an informed user
   • Find uninformed customers looking for outage information on funnel sites and encourage them to adopt self-service channels
3. Check in with 3rd party funnels

Post-Outage Phase
It is important to gauge channel adoption after an outage and calculate how many utility customers have graduated to self-service platforms. Then utilities can look back to see what actions produced the most interactive channel adoptions. Post-outage also involves studying the utility response and fixing any problems or adding new found solutions. A personal touch is to also offer a post-outage summary via email that describes the steps taken by the utility to restore power, including amount of damaged equipment, man hours used, and customers out. This helps customers understand why the outage occurred and why it took as long as it did to restore power. Doing this within 24 hours after the storm will improve customer satisfaction. The last step is to incorporate any new findings into the pre-outage or outage phase and continue marketing and encouraging self-service channel adoption until you reach 100 percent.

To measure the success of channel adoption:

1. Benchmark channel adoption with other outages and marketing initiatives to see which tactics are most effective
2. Study what the utility did well and what needs to be improved
   • Look for any issues faced during the outage and take action to prevent them next time; ask employees what they would change or improve
3. Create a Post-Outage Summary for customers (optional)
4. Update pre-outage and outage phases

Summary
Change is difficult. However, in cases like this, it is necessary and many would agree that this change is essential. Society’s dependency on electricity is foundational to our way of life and is becoming more critical as demand steadily outpaces supply. This will give rise to increased reliability concerns, resulting in outages being even more disruptive in the future. The ability to manage these issues must be planned into the customer systems. Demand for easy and interactive engagement is on the rise as well. The internet has created an expectation of receiving near instantaneous results, and this expectation has bled into nearly all other forms of interaction. Better understanding customer engagement is key to both customer involvement and the operation of the smart grid. The utility of the future will have to integrate new interactive communication channels with previously isolated focal points to achieve the greatest benefits that all can share.
 

About the Author

Matthew Ockwell has spent most of his professional career understanding customer behavior and motivators. Prior to joining Advanced Control Systems (ACS), he worked in the mobile and web realm for over a decade and holds a Google certification in advanced search & marketing. Before receiving his B.S. in Marketing Management from the University of Central Florida, from 2007-2012, he successfully founded and grew a mixed media marketing company that created collateral for Fortune 100 companies. He started with ACS as a mobile and web consultant and helped utilities develop solutions to better engage the public. He currently serves as Product Manager for OMS and Mobile Solutions at ACS.