The flurry of activity at this years CS Week conference and tradeshow is well underway in Washington DC.  A common topic for discussion at the event is how do you improve the credit and collection process in today's economy.   

After attending several collection optimization and mitigating credit risk seminars and workshops (including our own).  I am more than convinced that giving Utilities the ability to segment their customers based on past behavioural history is one of the best indicator of predicting future behaviour. This is accomplished by organizing your data and segmenting your customers in risk categories.  When risk is appropriately organized your organization can focus on high risk accounts by way of making accelerated phone calls and door knocks and with your low risk accounts call less frequently and make greater use lower cost effective media-channels (email, SMS).   

Here are some results Utility customers are seeing as a result of Segmenting their customers and leveraging this approach.

• Reduction in # of printed notices (save on print fees & postage)
• Reduction of both inbound and outbound collection calls  
• Reduction of write-offs to bad debt
• Reduction in the number of credit related disconnects
• Reduction in DSO

How are you optimizing your collection and credit optimizatin process?

This week on the Strategy Lab blog we have been spending a lot of time focusing on strategies for Utilities and specifically the Distribution & Retail Subsector of the industry.  Today's blog post deals with the changing needs of the Commercial & Industrial segment and how Utilities can respond from a competitive perspective.  Competition can be fierce and the ability for an energy retailer to be agile, creative and flexible is essential in accelerating the acquisition of Commercial & Industrial accounts. 

In today's environment the ability to acquire and implement new commercial and industrial customers requires flexibility in its billing and pricing options.  Yet the standard CIS often cannot react to change quickly enough.

Can your complex billing infrastucture handle the following?

• Propose, execute and manage Commercial & Industrial contracts including Time of Use, Load Profiling, Contract Price (interval & non-interval pricing) and usage variance charges
• Track usage transactions in real time
• Implement rate increases ahead of time
• Present complex billing calculations on an invoice
• Ability to conduct a settlement process
• Functionality to group multiple locations in one contract - e.g. a chain of restaurants
• Include renewable energy products as a percentage into the product mis - e.g. client requests a mix of 50% renewable energy & 50% nuclear

Treat the above as a checklist of just a few of the elements that your Commercial & Industrial customers may demand when you are trying to compete for their energy business.

If your interested in learning more on Complex Billing join us at CS Week May 29 - 22 in Washington, DC @ booth 626

 

 

 

CRM (Customer Resource Management) is not just a technology it is a business strategy. CRM is the platform and meeting place where all departments with-in your organization come together and ensure that customer needs and expectations are met, if not exceeded. CRM flattens the silos that exist in your organization by bringing the various departments together to collaborate and share information with a customer-focus view.

Lets review how each department uses CRM from a high level. Marketing uses CRM components to analyze trends, conduct segmentation, monitor churn and lead the development of new products. Sales is the function that maintains relationships with the customers, and ensures that the right, profitable business are being targeted to meet organizational objectives. Operations is the organizational function that ensures that the product or service that is being promised to the customer is delivered upon and ensures that enough resources or inventory are available when the business is brought on.

 The importance of having operations connected to the enterprise CRM is demonstrated by an experience I had while working in the transportation industry in Canada. At that time one of our senior sales people had just landed a large strategic account that would contribute more than one million dollars of revenue to the organization. The target customer's core business was the sale of beauty products. The sales strategy was highly effective due to collaboration between the technology group and the sales team. On implementation day the first pickup went smoothly, the Sales resource had done an excellent job at setting the customer up. The execution was flawless because he had engaged with other departments cross functionally to meet and exceed the needs of the customer. In this customer experience the solution involved a 6:00 PM daily pickup, data integration between shipping system and the clients ERP system which provided visibility to the web, call center and sales resources. All members of the sales team were plugged into the CRM solution and collaborated on how best to bring on the account. It worked.

So, where was the flaw?

The beauty supply companies first pickup occured in the month of October where temperatures in Canada still remain above freezing. However temperatures in the month of december dip below freezing daily. As the beauty products were being distributed across the country the product froze inside the trucks that they were being transported in, thus destryoing the inventory of lipsticks, makeup and perfume that were in the truck load.

Would that scenario's outcome be any different if the operations department had been involved in the collaboration of this strategic account? Would an operator have caught this potential mistake and saved the inventory of the beauty products distributor?

Here is another example:

A sales person from a Computer monitor distributor lands a deal with a large computer retailer for 500 computer monitors only to find out that 400 of the monitors were lost at sea due to a freak storm in the pacific ocean. The loss of inventory occured one week after signing the deal with a new customer and the order is delayed 8 - 10 weeks because the monitors have to be re-ordered from China.

Could this miscommunication have been prevented if operations or purchasing were plugged into the CRM to determine what the impact of the loss of inventory would have on the customer?

A well planned out customer resource management system will allow you to push out important customer information to departments that traditionally only concerned themselves with delivering their core function at a lower cost. CRM allows the entire organization to be pro-active as opposed to re-active. Customer relationship management is not just a tool but a business strategy that converts your organization into a customer-focused organization. It's time to break down your departmental silos and begin working as one organization all in tune with the needs of the customer.