Delivering Improved Customer Experiences and Operational Savings Through Your Website, Self-Service, and Social Media

Delivering Improved Customer Experiences
and Operational Savings Through Your
Website, Self-Service, and Social Media

EUCI Web Self-Service, Mobile Apps, and Social Media for Utilities

Maureen Russolo
Director, Customer Experience Services
www.esource.com March 26 2012

Outline
1. What is E Source
2. Rising Customer Expectations
3. Contact Channels and Management
 Mobile
 Texting
 Chat
 Social Media
 Preference Centers
4. Customer Experience
5. Questions

2 www.esource.com || © 2012 E Source

What is E Source?
What: Membership-based energy efficiency advisory service; unbiased
research and analysis.
Fuel-neutral, Product-neutral, Vendor-neutral, Program-neutral

for Who: Entire energy market -primarily utilities- also government,
corporate energy management, energy service providers, and product
manufacturers.
Why: Don't reinvent the wheel, rely on our analysis.
Leverage knowledge and successes from existing programs

How to access: Search content via web library, attend peer discussions,
web conferences, and direct inquiry.
Research portal, newsletters and trends, leader group calls, webinars, and
Member Inquiries.


Each E Source Service Contains
 Resources
 Newsletters and trends
 Research reports, case studies, & best
practices
 Web conference archive
 Online access to all content

Resources Events
 Events
 Leader-group call-ins
 Web-conferences
 Live conference & networking Member
Inquiries
 Unique deliverables
 Industry Experts
 Member Inquiry Service


Mobile Web and Apps


United States Canada

83%
of American adults have a cell phone
78%
of Canadian adults have a cell phone



46% 38%
of American adults have a smartphone of Canadian adults have a smartphone


Canada

13%
households reported they used a cell phone exclusively, up from 8% in 2008


United States

29%
of American adults have a tablet or e-reader


51
utilities have a mobile-optimized website

14
utilities have a mobile application


Most Common Mobile-Optimized
Features
Outage/Emergency Reporting 13
Mobile-Optimized Feature

Home Page 10
Outage/Gas Leak Status 8
Account Balance 6
My Account 5
Contact Us 5
Online Payment 4
Registration and Login 4
Account Alerts 1

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Number of Sites Supporting
© E Source


Tips for Developing a Mobile Website

 Do:
 Allow the site to auto-detect mobile visitors
 Research mobile customer needs/wants
 Test, test, test!
 Consider responsive design – more work up-front, but
allows for optimal design on any screen size
 Don’t:
 Ignore web analytics
 Try to fit all website content on the mobile site
 Forget to include a link back to the full site


Text Messaging



83%
of American adults have a cell phone
78%
of Canadian adults have a cell phone



73% 65%
of American adults use their phone for text messaging of Canadian adults use their phone for text messaging


Of those 73% of American’s who text

31%
Of adults prefer text messaging to talking on
the phone


Benefits of Text Messaging for Utilities

 Service Gap - Customers already know, use, and
prefer text messaging
 Great channel for hard-to-reach, higher-cost
customers:
 Low Income
 Non-Internet users
 Non self-serve
 Low overhead and transaction costs


Types of Text Messages

 Account balance  Outage notifications
 Bill amount and due date;  Usage alerts
bill to date  Service disconnect
 Payment reminders (notice or disconnection)
 Text-to-pay  Collections
 Payment posted  Energy-Saving Tips
 Bill is over set amount  Pricing Signals


Utilities offering Text-to-Pay service

 Denver Water
 NorthWestern Energy
 Salt River Project
 Kansas City Power & Light
 469 enrolled
 73 making payments
 25% of non-users interested

Image courtesy: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net


Online Chat


Utilities Offering Chat

 DTE Energy (pilot)
 Memphis Light, Gas, and Water
 Reliant Energy
 Southern Company
 TXU Energy


TXU Energy’s Chat Window


Reasons for Deploying Chat
 Is cost effective
 Decreases web abandonment rate
 Contains contact in web channel
 Increases customer satisfaction
 Enables remote workers/telecommuting


Social Media


Big 5 Still Dominate

96% (up from 74% in '10)

80% (up from 65% in ‘10)

90% (up from 71% in ‘10)

60% (up from 48% in ‘10)

38% (up from 15% in ‘10)

Channel Followers

36%

12%

18%

12% 5000+ = 18%
12,000+ = 2
14%


Channel Followers

30%

14%
5000+ = 18%
10% 10,000+ = 3

24%


Top Five Social Media Issues


E Source 2012
Utility Social Media Survey

Integrating social media into
a broader customer
experience plan

38%

E Source 2011 Social Media Survey Confidential – do not distribute www.esource.com || © 2012 E Source

E Source 2012
Utility Social Media

Have You Had To Report Social Media
Interactions To Your Commission?

Yes = 14%


2011 E Source Social Media Survey
Important Uses of Social Media

• Outages/crisis – 90%
• EE/safety tips – 84%
• Corp Comm Messages – 76%
• Communicating w/ media – 76%
• Product/Service promotion – 60%
• Customer Engagement – 56%
• Direct Customer Service – 46%


Preference Centers = Customization
Customers can choose
 Frequency of contacts from their utility
 Contact channels
 Communication types


Channels and Communication Types

 Contact channels
 E-mail
 Online message center
 Outbound phone call
 Text message
 Communication types
 Alerts
 Billing
 Disconnect notices
 Energy usage
 Marketing campaigns
 Newsletters
 Shareholder information


Portland General Electric


Customer Experience


Experiences Happen Everywhere

Web
Self-
Mobile
service

Social Live
media agent

Walk-in
Utility bill
office

Customer
Marketing
IVR
material

Meter
E-mail
reader

USR Text
Chat


Customer Experience
Management Means …

The process of deliberately
planning and enhancing all
customer interactions with a
company to deliver superior
service and inspire loyalty.


Percentages may total more than 100%, as respondents could select more than one response.


Organizing Around CEM

Respondents
Departmental structure
(%)

We have a small working group devoted to CEM. 36

We don’t have a department or small working group, but we
21
believe that CEM is everyone’s role.

We have an official department dedicated to CEM. 18

We use a different organizational structure for CEM than what’s
18
mentioned above.

We aren’t currently focusing on CEM, but we plan to do so within
6
the next 12 months.
© E Source


Leadership Teams Are Cross-Functional
71% use a cross-functional leadership team to guide the utility’s
customer focus.

Frequency of Meetings On no set
schedule
10%

More than
once/month
15%

Monthly
50%

Quarterly
25%

© E Source


Conference Includes Presentations from:
 Key Note from Tammy McLeod, Arizona Public Services, Chief
Customer Officer and 2010 Chief Customer Officer of the Year
 Chris Bevel, Channel Experience Designer, FedEx
 Zappos Head Quarters Tour
 Zappos Speaker
 Caroline MacKool, DTE, Customer Service Strategy
 John Lincoln, Customer Experience Leader, Duke Energy
 E Source staff presenting survey and benchmarking data
 And many other industry professionals

Learn more at http://www.esource.com/ucec2012.

Questions?


For more information

Maureen Russolo
E Source
Director, Customer Experience Services

maureen_russolo@esource.com
P 303-345-9100
C 313-600-6687


Delivering Improved Customer Experiences and Operational Savings Through Your Website, Self-Service, and Social Media

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