Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing
The Top 5 Ways
to Pump up Your
Customer Engagement
with Customer Program Management
A NEW ERA OF
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT
We live in the Netflix world now, and we like it.
Saturday Movie Night no longer means heading to the
local video store and browsing endlessly for a movie
the whole family will enjoy. Now it’s as simple as
signing into our streaming accounts, scrolling through
a thoughtfully trimmed list of suggestions perfectly
tailored to our tastes, and pressing play. We’ve grown
to love this: we get customized movie suggestions and
have more time to focus on the important stuff, like
popping the perfect batch of popcorn.
Consumers have grown to expect this personalization.
It’s this level of engagement that creates each
customer’s experience, unique to her tastes and needs,
designed to deliver the maximum impact for her life and
the greatest benefit from the services rendered. And
across industries, this translates into major gains for
businesses: 86 percent of customers would pay more
for a better customer service experience.
This desire for personalization carries across into
the utility industry. In order to delight the modern
consumer, utilities need to deliver a positive
customer experience in ways that resonate with the
people they serve. In a survey of CS Week 2015
attendees, however, we found that nearly 50 percent
of respondents reported the greatest obstacle to
delivering a positive customer experience was a lack
of technology available to support it.
Customer experience is about achieving a level of
engagement that makes customers feel nurtured,
and that doesn’t necessarily require a major additional
technology investment. Many savvy utilities have
found that they can accomplish some amazing things
in the customer experience arena by leveraging Oracle
Utilities Customer Care and Billing Customer Program
Management.
Customers crave a utility that can deliver products and
services to fit their needs. By introducing additional
customer programs and services, utilities are able to
truly nurture each customer by tailoring the experience
to fit his or her unique needs. This is inextricably tied
to customer satisfaction scores: in fact, as the number
of programs and services a utility offers increases, so
does its customer satisfaction score. And in a time
when utilities around the world are facing stagnant or
even declining load demand, these additional programs
and services establish new revenue streams and areas
for growth, a vital concern for today’s utility.
So without further ado, we bring you the
top 5 ways to pump up your customer
engagement game with Customer
Program Management. Enjoy.
1
#
PREPARE CUSTOMERS FOR SEASONAL CHANGE
Get ahead of those high bill questions before they start
The changing seasons can bring magical moments, like
watching the first winter snowfall, or running through
the sprinkler on a hot summer day. But they can also
bring some pretty hefty utility bills. And even though
we crank up that heat winter after winter, or water the
grass daily each summer, those high bills still somehow
sneak up on us.
Utilities can use Customer Program Management to
make sure their customers are prepared this year. As
the seasons begin to turn, take some time to map
out the information or programs you think might be
most helpful to your customers. Decide what type of
information and services you’d like to offer to specific
customers and tailor your interactions with them.
Perhaps customers with older homes in your service
area may benefit most from information on improving
home insulation. Or if your summers are particularly
hot, consider outreach during the spring to educate
customers about the importance of an efficient air
conditioner or offer air conditioner maintenance
services.
Steps you can take:
»» Use an automated email campaign to get
customers prepared for the seasonal changes.
»» Add proactive, tailored messages to high usage
bills as the seasons begin to turn.
»» Segment customers so you can target those most
at risk for harsh impacts of extreme temperatures
with customized outreach.
»» As you engage customers, track their interest in
information and services so you can tailor future
outreach campaigns taking their previous interest
into account.
#
2
OFFER SMART HOME DEVICES
Let technology do the heavy lifting on savings
We’ve entered an era in which our homes truly can be
smarter than we are. Smart phone apps can control
our lights from afar or lock our doors at the touch of
a button. While there is a growing selection of smart
home technologies in the market, programmable
thermostats are great for utilities to leverage now.
Programmable thermostats have proven their value
and are fast becoming a must-have in many homes.
These devices can have an immediate impact,
reducing home heating and cooling bills by about 20
percent. Use Customer Program Management to offer
programmable thermostats to your customers. Design
a program to target the best candidates and set up an
outreach campaign. If you’ll be offering customers a
rebate for participating in the program, use Customer
Program Management to help get the word out about
this benefit.
Steps you can take:
»» Set up an outreach campaign to promote your
smart thermostat program.
»» Assign leads to sales representatives to manage
the interaction with customers.
»» Manage your application and rebate process
through Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing.
»» Coordinate ongoing engagement with participants
to help them optimize thermostat performance and
track their satisfaction with the program.
»» Track program progress by reporting on
participation levels, lead conversion rate, and more.
#
3
PROVIDE ENERGY AUDIT SERVICES
Be your customers’ fearless energy leader
Many of us would like to reduce our energy spend and
we know there’s room to do so, we just don’t know
where to start. The task can be daunting, especially
without guidance. Utility customers need a trusted
energy advisor that can show them the quickest,
cheapest, or most impactful ways to savings.
Who better to be that energy advisor than you?
Utilities can position themselves as their customers’
energy partner and nurture that relationship with trust
and expertise. Decide which
customers you would like to target
for these services and how you’ll
execute them: will you provide the
consultation or will you coordinate
a third-party consultation? You can
even set up additional programs
and services to offer customers
based on the results of energy
audits and continue guiding them
to greater savings.
Steps you can take:
»» Educate customers with high usage trends on the
value of an energy audit or consultation, whether
through a call from an account rep, an email
campaign, bill inserts, etc.
»» When customers express interest, use Customer
Program Management to schedule a consultation.
»» Coordinate and initiate the appropriate field work
and other tasks and use alerts to keep tasks
moving forward.
»» If you’re leveraging a third-party provider, manage
and track their activity.
»» Tailor follow-ups with customers to offer additional
programs and services to best fit their needs.
#
4
PROMOTE ENGAGEMENT CHOICE
Snail mail to email and everything in between
In today’s mobile world, consumers have more
choice than ever in how they communicate and
engage with the world. As varied as the customers
themselves are, so are their preferences in how they
engage with utilities and for what type of issues.
For instance, according to an Accenture study, utility
customers largely prefer low-touch channels for simple
engagement like paying bills or learning about new
energy services, while they tend to prefer high-touch
channels for more complex engagement like resolving
billing issues.
Utilities can go a long way to support their customers’
communication preferences with an educational
campaign. Do you use social media channels for
outage updates or to promote programs? Make sure
your customers know about it! Tell them about all of
the ways they can engage with you, whether through
social media, your online customer portal, email or
phone. Take advantage of the preferences management
capability in Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing
and educate your customers so they can control when
and how you reach out to them.
Steps you can take:
»» Create an email campaign or add messages to bills
promoting ways to engage.
»» Target high bills with tailored messages on how to
access information on ways to save.
»» Manage your customers’ various communication
contact details, including do not disturb information.
»» Promote your paperless billing program and get
more customers using lower cost channels for
simple engagement.
#
5
LEVERAGE ANALYTICS TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE
Find out what works and do it more
Across industries, one of the major challenges to
improving customer experience is simply understanding
what customers want. Without insight into what
resonates with your customers and which of your
efforts have been most effective, it can be difficult to
realize long-term success in customer engagement.
Customer Program Management can give you that
insight. When you’ve decided how to improve customer
engagement, be sure not to fall into a “set it and forget
it” mindset. Track your progress, understand which
messages are capturing your customers’ attention,
programs and services about which they’re most
enthusiastic, and how those programs are impacting
their overall customer experience. When you’ve found
a program that works or outreach methods that are
successful, keep them going. Nurture positive customer
experience with ongoing improvements to your
customer programs and services.
Steps you can take:
»» Track program performance including reach and
lead-to-conversion rates.
»» Capture detailed performance progress for specific
customer segments.
»» Use Customer Program Management to track
customer satisfaction for
those enrolled in programs.
»» Proactively engage if a
customer’s satisfaction
levels decline.
»» Use program performance
and trends to tailor future
outreach programs.
ARE YOU READY TO PUMP UP YOUR
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT ?
With additional customer programs and services,
utilities can drive a positive customer experience and
nurture each customer with deeper engagement and
tailored communication. Programs and services not only
impact customer satisfaction, they also enable utilities
to leverage additional revenue streams and service
opportunities, a crucial need for today’s utility.
Get Started:
For more information about Oracle Utilities,
visit oracle.com/goto/utilities or call +1.800.ORACLE1
to speak with an Oracle representative.
Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing supports
the entire lifecycle of utility customer services and
products with Customer Program Management.
Customer Program Management includes end-to-end
process management features to drive more effective,
successful customer programs.
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