If raising customer satisfaction is your goal...

Look to the Leaders

Karen D. Morris

Marketing Manager

When you want to be the best at something, where do you look?  Naturally, you look to learn from the best, the most highly regarded, the top performers in that area, and then you explore the differentiators—what do they do differently that makes them better than the rest?  For this issue of Apogee’s Interaction, we conducted interviews with a few leaders within companies that are achieving top satisfaction rankings from customers today, including Southern Company, OPPD and others.  What we found, not surprisingly, is that customer satisfaction rests on just a few core concepts: strong customer service culture, communicating it effectively to all employees, then providing customers convenient self-service capabilities through their websites.

Leonard Haynes, Chief Marketing Officer at Southern Company summarizes it this way:

“I believe that we are successful in this area because we’ve made serving the customer a key component of Southern Company’s overall business strategy.  Our goal is to lead the industry in service and customer satisfaction. To help instill this belief in every employee, we communicate it early and often, and then we recognize and reward those who demonstrate excellence in customer service.”

Getting this message to people early can be challenging when you have thousands of new employees each year.  As the Company has done many times before, Southern led the industry several years ago by creating a “just-in-time” and “just-for-me” online course called “Student of the Business.”  This eight-hour course, conveniently accessed through their intranet, provides students with an overview of the energy industry, Southern’s history, operations, and the role every employee plays in demonstrating their values. This unique training method gives all employees a clear and consistent message about how each department plays a key role in customer satisfaction throughout the company.

All of Southern’s five operating companies and business units, including its Georgia Power subsidiary, say customer satisfaction ranks as a top priority along side financial stability and reliability.  According to Gene McLoud, Georgia Power’s Customer Satisfaction Consultant, “The system-wide corporate culture at Georgia Power Company, internally referred to as “Southern Style,” lists a core set of behaviors, including Unquestionable Trust, Superior Performance and Total Commitment that each employee should model.  Southern Company sets high standards, communicates them to employees, and holds people accountable.”

As a result, it’s no accident that 2004 was the fifth consecutive year Southern Company has rank highest in the Southern US according to JD Power and highest among 29 utilities from all across the country surveyed by the American Customer Satisfaction Index. 

Omaha Public Power District has ranked highest among midsized utilities by JD Power for four consecutive years and is well on its way to being nationally recognized for increasing customer value by uniting employees around a common vision.

Tim Burke, Vice President of Customer Operations, says, “OPPD’s main focus is to ‘Exceed Customer’s Expectations.’ It’s what keeps all business units aligned and supporting each other. This has become more than just a slogan, it has helped us maintain a customer focus even while we are reducing costs and making significant capital investments in our generation and transmission infrastructure.”

Once you empower employees with your company’s vision and commitment to customer service, the next step is assuring the effectiveness of your customer’s experience. In some cases, your website is the only interaction a customer will have with your company; so it is the company to those people.  Therefore, it’s imperative it makes a positive impression.  It must be easy to navigate so visitors can quickly find what they are looking for, and it must contain the answers and interactivity that customers need.

Paralleling other industries, utility websites are offering more online services. Many now offer the convenience of paying bills, making service requests and the ability to order products and services on the website.  Some are now raising the bar even further by providing customers with timely information during critical times, like during storms or planned outages. 

These Internet applications are often referred to as Storm Alerts and are proving to be significant cost saving and image enhancing applications.  “Our utility customers are finding that making the information customers need available when they need it leads to happier customers” says Apogee president Susan Gilbert.  “Our role is making the applications cost-effective for the utility and assuring they are easy to implement and maintain.”  Our customers have shared with us two serendipitous outcomes: Reduced communications requirements as employees across the organization now have a central place to go for updates, and better information getting to the media as they work to report on outages and restoration progress.

Learn more about this application by joining our Feb. 16th StormCentral™ Webinar.  Click here to register:

The quality of your customer’s experience is a key differentiating factor in today’s energy markets.  Industry leaders say they stay on top by having a strong customer service culture, communicating it effectively to all employees, then providing customers convenient self-service capabilities through their websites. 

To learn more about online learning or how your website can work for you, visit www.apogee.net or call Karen Morris at 770-270-6501.

On-Line Learning Proves A Good Fit for Co-op Employees

By Bob Gibson

Senior Program Manager

NRECA Cooperative Research Network

Last spring, the Cooperative Research Network (CRN) of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association sponsored a six-week, on-line learning pilot for cooperative utilities with Apogee Interactive.  We set out to gauge the receptivity of electric co-op employees to the option of receiving professional training over the Internet.

So everyone could easily access the courses, Apogee created an online learning portal, shown here, where participants from a dozen electric co-ops self-enrolled in a select group of courses.   

I happened to drop in at one of the participating co-ops just as the pilot project got under way.

North Dakota’s Cass County Electric Cooperative, which serves a fast-growing area outside Fargo, has a reputation for a strong focus on customer service.  That was evident from the moment I entered its Fargo office and walked through the co-op’s retail store, where everything from compact fluorescent bulbs to electric fireplaces are on display.  From there I entered the marketing department, where one co-op employee was meeting with a member, blueprints spread out on a table, discussing ways to improve energy efficiency in the plan for a new home, while other staff were handling customer inquiries by phone. 

I came by the desk of Shannon Kubik, one of two Cass County marketing representatives taking Apogee courses, just as she was working on the course she had selected, “Fundamentals of Electricity.” 

 “The course is perfect for me,” Shannon said. “You don’t know what question is going to come up when you are trying to help a member.  The better understanding I have of how electricity works, of the technical terms and facts, the better I’m going to be at my job.”

Marshal Albright, the co-op’s marketing manager, said that on-line learning suits his employees and the work environment at Cass County. “Both Shannon and Heidi can take a course at their desks, rather than having to travel off-site to a workshop, or attend classes after hours,” he said. “This is a very efficient way to provide quality learning in a way that is not at all disruptive.”

 Kubik agreed. “The course is challenging but manageable.  I can step away when I need to talk to a customer, but it is easy to pick up again where I left off,” she said. “I’m definitely learning a lot, plus it’s enjoyable.”

The high level of satisfaction with the Apogee courses at Cass County carried over to the other pilot participants.  At the conclusion of the pilot, our marketing and energy services task force at CRN was convinced of the value of on-line learning for co-ops.  In addition to working on custom courses based on CRN research, we are exploring the possibility of making Apogee courses available to our member co-ops on an on-going basis. 

According to pilot director Susan Gilbert, this was one of the most successful Apogee has conducted.  According to the course evaluations, users found it easy to use (83% rated Very Easy!), on the right level for them (94% rated level correct) and were highly satisfied with the experience (90% Neutral to High Satisfaction).

Once the project was launched with several webinars to introduce participants to their roles, the pieces fell neatly into place.  Users easily accessed and completed the courses, and participant comments during the wrap-up interviews were some of the best we’ve ever heard. Three comments that summarize much of what we heard in dozens of interviews are these:

“I like that I can study what I’m interested in right now, and I can do it when I have time—not when a course is offered and at my own pace.”

“This is a financial no-brainer.  The cost of an online course is less than what you’d pay for a classroom session, and there is no travel time or expense.”

“It remembers where I was and let’s me pick right back up where I stopped.”

The interest and need for this kind of online training delivery is clearly present among the cooperatives, and Apogee looks forward to helping bring new courses and innovative, state-of-the art approaches to them through our work with NRECA and CRN.

Interactive Tools Drive Satisfaction

Coast Electric Power Association, located on the Gulf in Mississippi, is stepping up its energy efficiency education this year with a whole series of online, interactive tools to help their members.

With the co-op’s increase in fuel costs lately from higher natural gas and delivered coal prices, “Our year-end survey showed we needed to improve member understanding of their energy consumption patterns and our rates. Their perceptions weren’t always matching up,” said Ron Barnes, manager of Marketing, Member Services and Communications for Coast EPA. “Some members don’t realize that today’s larger, electronics-intensive homes use more energy than the homes they grew up in.”

Coast EPA’s overall member satisfaction is an enviable 10 points above the national average for electric utilities as a whole -- rating 82 versus 72 as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index at the University of Michigan. “We always strive for better and our goals call for greater focus on improving member services and interactions,” explained Barnes.

Interestingly, Coast EPA’s member survey also revealed a “generation gap.” Customers with six or more years with the co-op rated Coast EPA higher than customers with five years or less. And it showed that members who experience tangible benefits from the co-op rate it higher. “Our task has been to find ways to more effectively reach our younger members and provide tangible member benefits,” Barnes said. “The younger generation may be more skeptical, but they’re also more technology savvy. So we believe the Internet is the best way to reach them with our messages.”

Coast EPA selected and launched the Apogee Interactive HomeEnergySuite on its Web site at the start of the year to offer members a full suite of interactive tools to help them better understand and manage their energy costs.

The Suite’s core tool is a home energy calculator that allows members to quickly see their home’s general energy patterns and how changing certain features or appliances can affect total energy costs. Coast EPA posts seasonal energy tips along side the calculator and can cross-promote other efficiency programs in that section at any time.

“Having the capability to instantaneously change and modify the tips was very important to us. This helps us keep the content fresh,” said Barnes.

The Suite also includes a lighting calculator, an appliance calculator, a full energy efficiency reference library and a Kids Korner section –

all with multiple cross links throughout so that users can jump back and forth to the sections and specific information they want at that time.

“There’s a lot out there competing for our members’ attention. If you want them to come to your Web site, you’ve got to provide them with good information,” Barnes said. “The HomeEnergySuite delivers good, actionable content and shows that we have our members’ best interests at heart.“ And that helps drive member satisfaction.

Contact: Eric Watson, Apogee Interactive, Inc., (770) 270-6517, or www.apogee.net, or Ron Barnes, Coast EPA, (228) 463-7338.

Revolutionizing Presentation of Energy Information

Eric Watson

Director of Product Development

While the energy industry may be going back to basics, here at Apogee that translates to an intensified focus on helping utilities improve customer satisfaction while reducing costs even further.  In response to requests from our clients, this past quarter we have concentrated our creative and analytical talents on making enhancements to the HomeEnergyCalculator™ (HEC).  These changes further separate our calculator from seemingly similar products in the marketplace.  The HEC is fast becoming a true online “self-audit” while maintaining its quick and intuitive user interface, ease of use, and delivery of actionable information.  Here’s what’s new:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Weather Normalization – Until recently, the cost and consumption estimates generated by the HEC were based on thirty-year temperature averages for each client’s geographical region.  Today, however, with the advent of our Weather Normalization module, the HEC pulls in the most recent twelve months of heating and cooling degree-day information for the geographic region and uses it to generate end-use estimates of energy consumption and costs by month.  And, yes, that includes modeling those pesky tiered block rate structures.

This allows users to view estimates of their energy consumption by end-use system, most notably heating and cooling, and see how consumption and costs vary from month to month for the past year.  This module can highlight the true impact of adding a heat pump to a gas heated home and properly calculates the incremental costs of changing out the water heater.  All this with no additional inputs!

2. Billing Data – Apogee has partnered with a billing services provider to enable the integration of actual billing history information into the HEC and for the implementation of a new application, InstantInsight^sm to be used by call center representatives (and customers) to resolve high bill inquiries from residential and small commercial customers.  Their billing history is automatically fed into Apogee’s InstantInsight^sm system from within the CSR’s CRM application, which then calculates billing cycle coincident weather/temperature data and performs a sophisticated statistical analysis to draw the correlation between weather and changes in total energy consumption.  This analysis estimates consumption by end-use and identifies any consumption that cannot be explained by variations in weather and automatically prompts the CSR with insightful questions they should ask the customer to resolve their energy use concerns. 

This allows the call center representative to resolve high bill calls quickly and accurately. 

 

3. AMR Data – Apogee has also partnered with a leading provider of Automated Meter Reading equipment and software to enable the integration of daily energy consumption data into the HEC.  As in the billing data integration application, daily consumption values allows for the implementation of InstantInsight^sm and a more refined estimation of the cost impacts in the HEC resulting from a change in energy consumption behavior.  Additionally, daily consumption values expand the graphical presentation of information in the HEC.  Presentation of daily, weekly, and monthly actual customer energy-use information (with an overlay of coincident temperature data) provides added insights into energy consumption patterns, and permits even more accurate and insightful prompts to the CSR for call resolution.

There will be much more coming about each of these initiatives in the near future, including a product launch at the February 26th TechAdvantage show in San Diego, press releases from our partners, and customer webinars.  And we are always happy to conduct demonstrations on request.

Our next newsletter will feature an article about HEC’s new companion calculator for commercial customers. Our goal remains helping utilities get back to the basics of improving customer satisfaction while reducing costs, and we look forward to working with our clients and partners in making further enhancements to the HomeEnergyCalculator.

We would love to hear from you.

Send your comments to

interaction@apogee.net

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