Billing

May 13-16, 2014

Nashville, TN

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2014 Customer Service BenchmarkingData Review Conference

Agenda

◼ Guidelines Review – for relevant section◼ Key Measures and Financials◼ Anomalies, Issues, Outliers and Corrections◼ Next Steps

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Customer Service Benchmark Study Organization

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CS Support and CS ITCS Support and CS IT

Customer Contact• Contact Center• Local Office• Self Service• Contractors• Credit Inbound calls

Customer Contact• Contact Center• Local Office• Self Service• Contractors• Credit Inbound calls

Back Office•Billing•Billing Field Policies•Payment Processing

Back Office•Billing•Billing Field Policies•Payment Processing

Field Service• Change of Account• Billing Field Orders

(meter investigations)

• Credit Field Orders• Order Management

Field Service• Change of Account• Billing Field Orders

(meter investigations)

• Credit Field Orders• Order Management

Meter Reading• Manual• Mobile AMR• Fixed Network AMI

Meter Reading• Manual• Mobile AMR• Fixed Network AMI

Revenue Management• Credit Office and

Outbound calls• Credit Field and Inbound

Contact Policies• Revenue Protection:

Office and Field

Revenue Management• Credit Office and

Outbound calls• Credit Field and Inbound

Contact Policies• Revenue Protection:

Office and Field

Customer Life-cycle: Meter Set to Cash Measures, Policies & ProcessesCustomer Life-cycle: Meter Set to Cash Measures, Policies & Processes

Employees: Safety, StaffingEmployees: Safety, Staffing

Customer: Customer Satisfaction, First Contact Resolution, Customer ExperienceCustomer: Customer Satisfaction, First Contact Resolution, Customer Experience

Areas excluded:◼ Energy Audit/Energy

Efficiency Group◼ Meter Change-out◼ Account Executives

Guidelines Review

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Functional Cost Model

Our approach to collecting cost, performance and staffing information follows customer transactions through each functional area.

If you have significant costs in one of the shaded categories, you can enter your cost in the shaded box.

No boxes are shaded on line.

Contact Center:◼ IVR◼ ACD◼ Scheduling Software◼ Workforce Management (WFM)◼ Multi-channel processing◼ Web, Social Media technology costs◼ VOIP◼ Web/email routers◼ Virtual hold technology costs◼ 3rd party applications (OMS interface etc.)

Field:◼ Mobile data◼ Scheduling◼ GPS◼ Telecommunications◼ Routing software◼ Dispatching software

Revenue Protection◼ Tamper plug◼ Data mining software

Meter:◼ Handhelds◼ Routing software◼ Telecommunications◼ Remote disconnect◼ MV 90◼ GPS

Bills:◼ Inserters◼ Web/email, bill presentment◼ C/I billing software (MV 90)

Payment:◼ Image processer◼ Slitter/sorter◼ Interface w/kiosks◼ Routing software for off-site payments◼ Payment Kiosks

Credit:◼ Behavioral scoring◼ Predictive dialer◼ Credit optimization software

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Technology – Billing

NOTE: CIS is a separate category

Technology Any technology specifically used for a function such as meter reading devices, mobile data technology, telephone switch or call routing software, call monitoring software etc.

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Subject Areas for Billing

◼ Bill presentment Channels Activities/Volumes Bill options

◼ Bill Design◼ Accuracy

Pre-audit/post-audit Exceptions Errors

◼ Estimating◼ Efficiency & Measurement◼ Outsourcing◼ Initiatives for improvement

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Billing Definitions

Transactions

◼ Bills Issued = Count one per customer, even if multiple commodities or multiple meters at a premise (e.g. a “consolidated bill”). If a summary bill is produced (e.g. usage at multiple locations is summarized), count each

individual location as a bill, as well as the summary bill. Count any e-bills sent, but do not double count any mailings. If you send both paper and

electronic, count as one bill. Include any final bills sent in this count.

Performance Measures

◼ Error Rate = Account adjustments identified after the bill is delivered to the customer. A change that affects multiple months is still considered one adjustment. Does not matter if the account is re-billed or just adjusted on a subsequent bill. The adjustment may not be the company's “fault”.

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Billing Volume

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This question provides the key information to know how many bills of each type were issued. It is used in determining % of electronic bills, as well as billing costs per bill.

Key measures & Financial

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Billing Profiles

    Mean Q1 Q2 Q3 Bars Mean Q1 Q2 Q3 Bars

Cost                    

Total Billing Cost Per Account * Commodity $5.57 $4.93 $5.12 $5.96 12 $5.70 $5.28 $5.49 $6.14 13

Total Billing Cost Per Bill $0.52 $0.45 $0.55 $0.59 10 $0.62 $0.54 $0.61 $0.66 13

Postage Cost per Paper Bill $0.343 $0.349 $0.370 $0.381 10 $0.393 $0.350 $0.378 $0.417 13

Service Measures                    

Bill Accuracy - Percent Of Bills Adjusted After Sent To Customers

0.258% 0.146% 0.211% 0.323% 4 0.39% 0.12% 0.37% 0.59% 6

Internal Measures                    

Percent Of Bills That Are Estimated 4.57% 1.20% 2.53% 4.45% 10 4.58% 0.86% 1.73% 4.58% 10

Non-Paper Bills Issued 14.0% 17.0% 12.9% 7.4% 12 15.9% 20.4% 14.5% 11.6% 13

Percent of Bills mailed within billing window 97.9% 99.7% 99.5% 98.4% 8 99.1% 99.9% 99.1% 99.0% 8

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2013YE 2012YE

Billing Costs

Billing costs are one of the key performance measures. One company still needs to report postage costs. Several companies haven’t reported materials e.g. Paper and Envelope costs.

Source: FL5, Pg 3

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BILL ACCURACY - PERCENT OF BILLS ADJUSTED AFTER SENT TO CUSTOMERS

Not all companies can track this or separate adjustments between before or after the bill was issued. However, customers only care about those adjustments they see.

To get this data – at least start with cancel/rebills.

Source: BL40, Pg 42

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Demographic Profile: Billing

Min Mean Max Min Mean Max

Non-Paper Bills Issued 1.9% 14.0% 34.1% 8.4% 15.9% 26.5%

Billing exceptions processed 0.18% 3.54% 7.69% 0.5% 1.7% 2.9%

Bills Issued per Account 9.20 11.86 13.66 0.00 10.94 14.12

Meters on your system read by AMR 1-way or AMI 2-way 0.00 33.84 99.77 0.00 33.09 100.00

2013YE 2012YE

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Anomalies, issues, outliers and Corrections

Page 3

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Customers Using Electronic Options

We like this graph and someday want everyone to be able to answer this question.

What billing must know already:

How the customer is billed…

OR

Most companies reported in BL175 that a key initiative to reduce billing costs is to promote e-bill. The ideal customer to target e-bill to is those already paying electronically, but getting a paper bill.

What does payment know? We’ll discuss in the payment section.

Source: BL22, Pg 27

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Balanced Billing

Company 27 this number should be less than 100%.

BL35 should be a percent of all accounts, not a percent of accounts on balanced billing.

Source: BL35, Pg 34

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Actions taken on Exceptions Flagged

Total all exceptions 100 BL40.1Exceptions reviewed & approved 60 BL40.2Exceptions reviewed & corrected 10 BL40.3 PartExceptions sent to the field – issued 8 BL40.2Exceptions sent to the field – corrected 12 BL40.3 PartBill estimated 5 BL105Not billed 5 BL135Other? __________

Source: BL40 Pg 3918

This is a combination of incomplete data set – we didn’t ask for all the parts or didn’t separate out the answers needed – and incomplete information from companies.

BILLING EXCEPTIONS FIELDED FOR INVESTIGATION

Missing: exceptions sent to field and corrected

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The red and yellow pieces should be pretty close. Field Service and Billing should be reporting about the same amount of orders. The blue piece should be some portion of the yellow piece, but we’re missing the rest of the yellow.

Comparison BL20 to BL5

BL5 shows the percent of bills issued electronically. BL20 shows the percent of accounts that opted for paperless bills. Looks like most company’s numbers match pretty well. Just a few are a little off.

35%

29%

--

17%

16%

14%

--

39%

--

13%

16%

23%

BL20BL5

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Meter Reading Errors

This graph didn’t make it into any report.

Mean 0.061 %Quartile 1: 0.017 %Quartile 2: 0.051 %Quartile 3: 0.110 %

Calculation used:( BL57.1A + BL57.2A + BL57.3A + BL57.4A ) / (MR10| Meter Reads) * 100

Meter Reading Errors (Percent of Reads): Manual

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Response BL58

27 Reading is negative to the last billed Regular read.

32 An incorrect bill issued as the result of a provided incorrect reading or data point.

26 Re - evaluating how determining and if we can measure

A meter reading that based on history cannot be determined if accurate or interpolated as a misread.

A meter reading that based on history cannot be determined if accurate or interpolated as a misread.

By adjustment code tracked. Adjustment code 84

Any service order we have to send based on a prebill exception or most adjustments that have to be made on an account.

When a periodic reading is determined to be out of line or inconsistent with history resulting in a cancel rebill or billing adjustment.

Meter Reading Errors

This graph didn’t make it into any report.

Mean 3.272 % Quartile 1: 2.403 % Quartile 2: 4.806 % Quartile 3: 4.908 %

Calculation used:( BL57.1B + BL57.2B + BL57.3B + BL57.4B ) / (MR10| Meter Reads) * 100

Meter Reading Errors (Percent of Reads): Automated

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Outsourcing Percent

Here’s a visual look at the percent of bills produced by an outsourcer. We will add something like this to the next report. In BL155 we ask for bills produced by an outsourcer broken out by type of bill. In BL5, those bill types overlap. So the answers in the graph won’t add to 100%.

Paper onlyPaper & internetPaper & emailInternet onlyEmail onlyEDI

Note that bills that are issued as paper and internet that are both produced by an outsource, you’re paying twice to produce that bill.

Source: BL155

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Issues found: Billing

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Page # Q # Primary Issue Who

3 FL5 Missing postage 36

6 FL5 Very large number compared to the rest of the panel 20

15 BL5 27: Over reported number of bills; 26: Under reported number of bills 26, 27

15 BL5 Check number of bills report – a little high 27

34. 36 BL35 Denominator for this calculation should be total number of customers. You’ve used number of customers on payment plans. So you show 100% rather than a smaller number. Please correct. Also, for BL35.3 – you entered a value, not a percentage.

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51 BL77 Very high number reported for cycle days, please confirm 34

53-55 BL80 “Yes” is not an answer to this question 21

61 BL115 Please leave unselected options blank 27

65 BL125 Is this correct… No bills mailed within billing window? 26

23 BL15 Not all row headers are complete 1QC

37 BL35 Normalize chart 1QC

50 BL70 Badly worded title 1QC

NEW BL57 Not included in report 1QC

NEW BL155 Add % outsourced chart 1QC

Billing

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This is key functional data that is needed to understand impact across the entire “Customer Service” process.

Question # QuestionFunctional Process

ImpactBL125

What percent of bills are mailed within billing window?

Call Center Field ServiceMeter Reading

BL35.1 & .2 Percent of accounts opted for level pay or balanced billing

Call CenterPayment Processing

BL40.1 & BL5 Billing Exceptions processed Meter ReadingBilling

BL40.1, .2 & .4 Action taken on exceptions flagged Field ServiceCall CenterMeter ReadingBilling

BL5, 40.5 % of bills adjusted after sent to customer Call CenterField ServiceCredit Collections

Next steps

◼ Minutes from this meeting will be available by May 23.◼ Next Deadline is June 2. This draft will be your last chance to see how your data

compares before the final report, so you need to have all of your data input and correct at this time. The final deadline is for ensuring all of your data is correct.

◼ Your data coach will help you finalize your data.

26Note: Completion % as of 5/9/14

Thank you for your Input and Participation!

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First Quartile Consulting is a utility-focused consultancy providing a full range of consulting services including continuous process improvement, change management, benchmarking and more. You can count on a proven process that assesses and optimizes your resources, processes, leadership management and technology to align your business needs with your customer’s needs.

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