© 2008 Eventure Events. All rights reserved. Customer Self-Service and Empowerment Lawanda Parnell Senior Director, Enterprise Application Delivery Sandra Nobile Currans Manager, Customer Contact

CPS Energy The nation's largest municipally owned energy company providing both natural gas and electric service. Serves 685,000 electric customers and 320,000 natural gas customers in and around San Antonio, Texas, the 7th largest city in the United States. Energy bills rank the lowest of the nation’s 20 largest cities, and the company has earned the highest financial ratings of any electric system in the nation.

Our Customers Customer Base –Total population including metro-area: 1,994,400 –1,500 new meters a month in early 2007 –1,350 new meters a month in 2008

Why Customer Self Service? Increase customer coverage Give customers choices 24x7 accessibility Online/web customers are happier

Customer Contact - What We Do… Customer Contact is comprised of 1 Call Center and 3 Walk-in Offices. The primary functions of Customer Contact are to respond to customer inquiries and requests via the phone, fax, , person to person, and to accept payments from customers. The Call Center operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Staffing must be spread out over a 24 hour basis, with the majority scheduled between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm, Monday– Friday. Walk-in facilities are open 7:30 am to 5:00 pm Monday– Friday. The majority of the CSRs in the Call Center are scheduled to be on the phones, while other CSRs are scheduled off phones to handle customer requests that come from faxes and s to CPS Energy. Some also provide technical assistance, and respond to customer escalations. CSRs in the Call Center are also required to work Call Duty for Storm Response and other emergency situations.

Calls Received by Switch

Something Had to Change Between 2004 – 2008 an 18% increase in call volume Projections indicate same rate of call volume increase in the next 5 years Budgetary constraints Commitment to improve customer satisfaction –Respond to customer demand for various channel offerings

Automated Customer Service Options Solutions IVR  Touch tone  Two transactions available  Supports 96 simultaneous calls  No analytics or reporting capabilities  No tuning capabilities IVR  Speech & touch tone enabled  Six transactions available  Supports 253 simultaneous calls  Trend Analysis and reporting capabilities  Tuning Options  40% of calls are completed through the IVR IVR  Commercial  Residential  Spanish Virtual Hold  Commercial  Residential  Spanish Virtual Hold

Page Views/Month

Automated Customer Service Options Solutions Manage Your Account  Start, Stop, Transfer Service: 5,296  Update Mailing Address: 288  Update Phone Number: NA  Payment Plans: 1,842 Online Web Forms  Residential Portal (August 2008)  168,000 customers  Real-time integration with SAP  Start, Stop, Transfer Service: 1,786  Update Mailing Address: 1893  Update Phone Number: 1,693  Payment Plans: 3,451 Manage Your Account Online Payments  Total Online Payments: 729,352 (9/2008)  Total Revenue: $127+ Million  Integration with Manage Your Acct Online Payments  Available to residential customers  Total Online Payments: 788,948  Total Revenue: 122+ Million Online Payments

2007: Before SAP integration…

2008: After SAP Integration…

Manage Your Account

Manage Your Account Technologies SAP ECC 6 Java Tomcat Lexis Nexis

Property Manager Portal Pilot: August 2007 – July 2008 GoLive: August 2008 Target audience: residential apartment managers –View bills (12 months) –View occupancy status –Process Move-Ins/Move-Outs – verification within 24 hours

Enrollment

Home Page

User Profile

Occupancy Status

View Bills

Value Better customer data –Phone numbers, mailing addresses, etc More responsive Online payments increased 24/7 customer access – “convenience factor”

Lessons Learned Data cleaning – Driver’s License, Social Security, Tax ID Use front line staff to test and give feedback on product offering Conduct “Negative Testing” Be open to “out of the box” recommendations Run reports to track “good” and “bad” transactions Track, Track, Track…..

What’s Next? Commercial portal –Online bill pay –Usage –Bill print Payment kiosks Pay by phone Additional Manage Your Account transactions

Questions?

© 2008 Eventure Events. All rights reserved. Lawanda Parnell (210) Sandra Nobile Currans (210)