When I ask the question “Who are your customers?” people look at me like I'm somewhat demented. Initially people feel like there is a very obvious answer: “They are our consumers, the people who use our water (or electricity or gas, etc.).” or “The people in our service territory or city.”

Distribution utilities still have a 'captured' base of customers or consumers. Utilities, for the most part, are still monopolies, albeit regulated. But, just because someone lives in your service territory, or uses your commodity or service, are all of these people/entities what is meant by the term “customer” in all of the articles dealing with customer care, customer service and customer relationship management?

How do you define a customer anyway? Is a customer an account? Is a customer a meter? Is a customer a service connection? If a person has two services (i.e., gas and electricity), is that counted as two customers? If a person has a primary home, a weekend escape outside of the city, a small business, and two income properties (one of which has a tenant who is responsible for the bill and one of which is currently vacant), how many customers is that? Or, in the much larger pretense, is a customer simply a citizen, someone counted in the last census?

We hear today that customer care is a primary focus of most utilities. We are all looking for ways to help us “touch” our customers. We initiate and participate in customer satisfaction surveys. I am not saying that these things are not valid—they certainly are. But, we must realize that the 80-20 rule applies here too. Eighty percent of our efforts in the customer care/customer service area are for 20 percent of our customers. And, this may even be stretching it. I am told by utilities and municipalities who have attempted to measure these activities that it may be fewer than 20 percent of your customers who generate over 80 percent of your customer care work.

Most Customer Information Systems (CIS) today are customer focused. They provide the functionality to maintain fairly comprehensive customer information. Many have the ability to support marketing to both current and potential customers. Many solutions have the ability to track customer contacts, allowing utilities to monitor and assess why customers are contacting the utility. And every major CIS product provides functionality to efficiently facilitate the handling of and the response to customer inquiries. In a nutshell, most current CIS products today do a good job of assisting your customer service representatives in servicing the 20 percent of your customers who make up 80 percent of their work.

When selecting a new CIS or determining enhancements for your existing CIS, make sure that the basic customer service functions are accommodated very efficiently by the system. Consider Interactive Voice Response (IVR) functionality and even Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). Evaluate the need for automated work flow and electronic work queues. Obviously, by saving a couple of seconds of time per transaction when doing 80 percent of your work, you can go a long way toward the overall goal of reducing costs while increasing quality.

But that is not the whole story. What other functionality do you need to “touch” and please the other 80 percent of your customers whom you rarely hear from? Is it enhanced bill presentation? Is it internet access to their account information? Is it more convenient payment plans, methods and locations? Think about yourself. Do you rarely call your utilities? Are you one of the 80 percent who tend to get ignored? What would you like to see your electric company/gas company/water company/sewer company/solid waste removal company, etc. provide? Then, make sure the system you are considering can accommodate that. It is important that you continue to provide excellent customer service to this 80 percent group because, if they do become unhappy, even if they cannot necessarily leave you and select another service provider, they can easily join and ultimately increase the size of that 20 percent group, resulting in either a lower level of customer service to this group, or increasing your costs of serving them. Either way it is something you do not want.

Another very important, and many times missed aspect, in looking at CIS functionality, is to consider the other group of customers who we have not mentioned thus far. That group includes your internal customers. A CIS of today has to do much more than function as a tool for the customer service organization and back-office organizations like billing, collections, cashiering, etc. A CIS is unquestionably an integral, mission-critical application for every utility. Staff in many other organizations within the utility can really benefit from the information within CIS. A few examples of some internal customers within municipalities are:

The Police Department—The Police may appreciate the complete set of customer data that may not exist elsewhere within the city. Their work may require them to know the names of all occupants, to be able to search by name, address, phone number, and employers. The CIS could be used to help them with information for search warrants. Biographical information related to the residents and businesses could be very helpful to them.

The City Manager's or Mayor's Office—High profile customers likely call this office to get “special treatment” from city officials. Analysts or administrative assistants, using an intuitive CIS, could access the customer, research the customer's contacts with the utility, and perhaps even issue a service order for more investigation. This office might also appreciate the ability to use the address database to do target mailings and/or bill stuffers for specific geographic areas. They could produce welcome letters from their council representative.

The Community Services Office—The office which is responsible for the administration and maintenance of parks, recreation events and services should be able to query the CIS to obtain maintenance information on the parks, right-of-ways, and other city facilities for record-keeping and maintenance scheduling.

The Community Development Office—This area is responsible for the establishment of long-range plans and policies, implementation and administration of city zoning, planning and development policies, issuance of building permits, building inspections, code compliance, and neighborhood enhancement. Many times there is a separate permits system, but it is seldom interfaced with CIS. Community Development needs CIS information such as property owner data when there are infractions. Likewise, there needs to be a centralized database for new addresses, and then have those addresses pass into CIS.

Financial Services—Every utility has a financial services area which may include a Budget Office, an Accounting area, a Treasury area and Internal Auditors. These areas need CIS data for planning and forecasting, financial reporting, cash management and internal controls.
The ability of the CIS solution to accommodate these (and other) areas can be a significant differentiator between vendor solutions. But, before you can make any selection decisions, you need to solicit input from these areas and develop functions and features which outline their needs and desires. Many times we are talking about additional fields which can be used to store, and access, this data. We are many times talking about the ease and ability to query the database, or develop ad-hoc reports to obtain the information. We are also talking about integration issues, which are many times best addressed early in the project rather than after the system goes live.

CIS requirements need to go beyond the traditional customer service/billing system functions and features, and include the ability to offer value-added features to your high-value customers. CIS requirements must also include the organization's internal customers, those who have not traditionally used the CIS before, but who have a need for the information which could be gathered, stored and analyzed within the system. Consider including representatives from these internal areas in the requirement setting sessions. Or, conduct interviews of these internal departments or send out detailed surveys to get their input. Consider conducting a series of cross-sectional Joint Application Design (JAD) sessions to both brainstorm needs and desires, and to obtain company-wide concurrence on the use of CIS.

TMG seldom is asked into a utility where there isn't already a universal understanding of the importance of a CIS on the entire utility. But, interestingly, it is very common for us to have to initiate the concept of including requirements and desires from other internal departments as a part of the stated requirements for a new CIS. CIS has the potential to be the central customer database for the entire utility. Don't miss this opportunity.

Gary Weseloh is a Vice President and Senior Consultant with TMG Consulting. He has over 30 years of utility experience, including the management of customer systems (CIS, meter reading, remittance processing, complex billing) at a large combination utility, consulting on mobile dispatch/field work automation, and extensive selection, evaluation and installation oversight projects with TMG Consulting. He can be reached at garyw@tmgconsulting.com.