Customers are now able to switch more easily to a new supplier then a couple of years ago. Due to the regulated split-up of the value chain, more players entered the market and there is more choice for the consumer. So, retaining a customer and the “hunt” for the new customer became a priority. The cost of maintaining a (good) customer is less than the cost of the acquisition of a new one thus Utilities need to concentrate efforts on keeping the customer happy.
Besides that the customer expects a service level of a 100%, Utilities need to manage other expectations, which result, eventually, in customer experience. Using my personal experience, I will mention some expectations a customer has of an electricity distribution company and then line them up with the Business Assurance practice. The Business Assurance practice that helps customers to be happy.
I expect my bill to be addressed to me and not to me with a slightly different name. I expect the tariff applied to be the one the supplier promised me. I also expect the bill to reflect the estimated power consumption minus the real one (measured once every 6 months) and that the balance to pay / to be credited for, to be correct. I like to see my flat rate to be adjusted to my profile of consumption so I don’t have unpleasant surprises at the end of the contract period. I would say that these are expectations that are more susceptible to stronger emotional reactions, when reality is different from the expected values.
So, not that hard to get these right, right? Wrong. It IS hard to get billing millions of customers to be flawless. Generally speaking, dozens of systems and processes create and support the data and the flow that eventually leads to that bill I receive. An example of systems and processes involved in a meter to bill process:
- A meter from which data is read (either automatically or manually)
- An interface that transforms and transfers that data to a meter reading management system
- An interface that transfers relevant data to a billing software
- A Customer Relation Management system that holds my contract information and delivers it to the billing system
- The billing system holding the correct tariff information and applicable taxes and produces the bill
- The finishing system that, with all collected relevant information, prints my invoice
With all this complexity there is a chance I may receive an erroneous bill. And when I find out about it, I will be disappointed and call up the company. In the UK, two third of complaints to suppliers registered by customer support professionals continue to be about billing errors (Source: Citizens Advice).
Now, as a reasonable person and with some experience in the ICT sector and large scale implementations of systems that support complex business processes, I can understand that these things happen. And I have hope because there are solutions that can prevent this all. In the (complexity comparable) telecommunication industry similar issues occurred. The Business Assurance practice was adopted and the sector has a yearly healthy return on investment and happier customers and shareholders.
One of the practices that will detect erroneous billing, before the customer does, is Enterprise Business Assurance. As controls on the accuracy of individual systems does not avoid errors on a process or integration level, one needs a systems’ agnostic solution that loads data from all systems involved, applies the correct business rules and validations and verifies if all is good. These permanent audits will allow detection of possible errors that can lead to my dissatisfaction. Better, it will allow to detect anomalies in values billed to me (i.e. Bill Shock, I typically spend 300 USD per month and suddenly a 300.000 USD bill occurs…) and the subsequent potential press that will reduce confidence even further.
The Business Assurance practice only works a 100% if it is continuous and involves all customers, relevant processes and systems. Utilities thus need a solution that can handle the big data involved and has the intelligence to detect issues and to present them in a way we humans can analyse. Also, they will have to involve others in the organization to solve the cases found and consequently it needs an integrated collaborative workflow solution.
Earlier this year, it became public that a UK electricity supplier had received a 7 million pounds fine due to incorrect billing. More recently, we read another release about that same company billing a customer millions whilst he normally spends just 300 pounds per month. These are expensive examples of the 80% of complaints registered at customer support centres of utilities. Underlying systems and processes cause these issues that can be prevented by adopting a Business Assurance practice and control systems and processes on a permanent basis. The company that does will surely have an easier job in maintaining clients happy and will become more competitive.
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