NEWS 2003: Jun01 SPL WorldGroup Streamlines Utility Business Processes with Major Enhancements to the CorDaptix™ Customer Management Solution

MORRISTOWN, NJ., June 1, 2003 - SPL WorldGroup announced today at the 2003 CIS Conference that it has responded to the growing global success and enthusiasm for its widely praised CorDaptix™ customer management software. With the new CorDaptix 1.5, utilities and service companies can significantly upgrade user efficiency, expand their products and services, and streamline essential tasks. “Utilities around the world rely on the CorDaptix™ solution to underpin customer-centric, forward-looking service,” said SPL CTO Guerry Waters. “They’re increasingly recognizing that customer data must inform virtually every business decision. CorDaptix 1.5 helps speed the right data in the right forms to the right destinations throughout the enterprise. It also facilitates cost-cutting while simultaneously expanding utilities’ potential responses to customer needs.” Waters continued, “At the heart of CorDaptix lies SPL’s commitment to customers. Our customers have suggested many of the 1.5 enhancements, and we’ve developed them in ways that facilitate specific utility business processes. That’s what we mean when we say that SPL builds solutions not just for the energy industry, but also by the energy industry.” SPL has enhanced the business process capabilities within CorDaptix to improve call-center efficiency and quickly upgrade customer service representatives’ effectiveness. CorDaptix 1.5 includes:

Interactive, scripted business processes. Such scripts help reduce errors by providing step-by-step instructions for a new task or a task that is seldom performed. Scripts are also useful when customer service representatives confront unusual customer questions or need to conduct marketing campaigns.
A financial portal zone in the dashboard. This feature consolidatesinformation needed for many different transactions. It reduces navigation through screens and speeds user response to questions.
Context menus and trees that improve navigation. CorDaptix 1.5 has, for instance, a single-screen view of a specific workflow process—a feature that reduces training costs and increases productivity.

The new release supports retailers, distributors, and integrated utilities alike with new tools that address commercial and industrial customer needs, such as:

Summary handling of large accounts. CorDaptix 1.5 shows summarized tables of data when accounts have large consolidated bills. The product can also filter the data to meet specific criteria, such as service address. These enhancements facilitate a variety of bill management and payment processes, including the distribution of partial payments.
Quotations for products and services. CorDaptix 1.5 allows users to provide potential customers with accurate cost estimates or quotes. Companies can also develop billing simulations based on the actual rates and other conditions that will be in place should their customer accept the quote. CorDaptix can supply multiple scenarios for customers with multiple sites. Should a prospective customer decide to accept an offer, CorDaptix can easily convert the quote into a contract; there is no need to capture the relevant contract details a second time.

Because today’s utility and service company also has a major focus on mass-market and mid-market customers, CorDaptix 1.5 expands the ability to offer products and services to these groups, thus helping to increase customer satisfaction. CorDaptix now supports, for instance, amortized loan repayments and cross-product discounts. It also enhances support for existing product and services lines in such areas as:

Service credits, which support both loyalty programs and the capital credits programs of North American co-ops.
Service Appointments. CorDaptix 1.5 arms customer service representatives with field service schedules so that they can make appointments for customers who require a service call.

CorDaptix 1.5 supports SPL’s outstanding implementation track record and its reputation for easy upgrades and use by offering:

CorDaptix configuration datasets. With CorDaptix 1.5, companies can easily test many different types of changes under multiple scenarios, including new products and services, marketing campaigns, tariff changes, etc. Once the changes are approved, they can be automatically migrated to the production environment, reducing the errors inherent in re-keying the data.

An archive engine that removes older transaction data from a production environment.
A framework for integrating multi-language, currency-supported reporting tools with the core system. This feature permits easier navigation to reports.
A Web self-service framework that helps integrate CorDaptix information into a customer-facing website. This framework enhances service offerings like auto pay, bill look-up, and meter self-read.
Tools that facilitate the creation of custom portal zones. Portals specific to the company’s business improve information access, reduce navigation, and lower training costs.

Because SPL is committed to serving the global market, CorDaptix 1.5 responds to specific regional and generalized global needs. New features include:

Non-billed budgets. This feature facilitates payment schedules not linked directly to billing schedules. (Use: U.K. and Australia, where payments may be made fortnightly, but the customer may be billed only quarterly.)
Optional forms of personal identification that meet privacy requirements in specific countries.
Alternative rules for rounding off numbers. (Use: Japan, Australia.)
Techniques for handling customer concessions. Some countries grant permanent or temporary customer concessions that a utility may not know about at the time the bill is calculated. (Use: Australia.)
Asian character-set accommodation.

About SPL
Established in 1994, SPL WorldGroup is a leading provider of customer management solutions. With a 100% record of successful implementations, SPL continues to demonstrate its place as the market leader, providing companies with flexible and scalable customer management solutions that offer a crucial advantage in an increasingly customer-centric environment - the proven ability to attract, nurture and maximize the value of customers through billing excellence and innovation in customer management, sales and marketing. With particular strength in energy sector markets that require multi-language, multi-jurisdiction, multi-currency, and multi-product service lines, SPL has delivered its customer management solutions to financial services, energy, water and waste management customers worldwide. The company employs more than 650 professionals in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Visit SPL WorldGroup at www.splwg.com.

About CorDaptix™
SPL's CorDaptix™ solution is the innovative, adaptable and fully upgradeable customer management product designed to provide scalable solutions that withstand the test of time, growth, and product and service line introductions and extinctions. Its automated handling of direct-access service requests and its billing flexibility - including its ability to handle combinations of commodity and non-commodity products and services - make it particularly well suited for energy retailers. The CorDaptix solution scales readily from a few thousand customers to many millions, and its intuitive interface and customer-centric data model give retailers’ customer service representatives the immediate information access they need to serve and retain customers.

2003 SPL WorldGroup, Inc. All Rights Reserved. SPL WorldGroup, SPL, and CorDaptix are trademarks owned by SPL WorldGroup B.V. or its subsidiaries. SPL WorldGroup and SPL are registered as trademarks in the United States and in certain other jurisdictions. All other brand, product and company names herein are used for identification purposes only and are the property of their respective owners.