1. 2011 Utility Payment Conference
Mobile (SMS) Update from
NorthWestern Energy

2. Key Points Decision-Making Process Implementation Process
Marketing Campaign
Comparison
Summary
Today we are going to talk about our Decision &Implementation Process, Our Marketing and some comparisons .

3. Benefits Provides a new, convenient solution to your customers
All phone types are supported
All major carriers are supported
Easy to implement with no capital expenditures
Self service enrollment and management
Flexible – the customer opts in, can choose whether or not to make a payment and can stop at any time
Scalable – can support messages, alerts, reminders
As a company we completed an analysis weather we wanted to join with our vendor to offer Pay By Test. Here are some of the benefits we considered in our decision making process.

4. Implementation Process
Launched on 7/29/2010
IVR and Internet were modified to include Pay by Text enrollment
Product certified with wireless carriers so no 3rd parties were involved in implementation
Thoroughly tested with employee enrollments during UAT cycle
Added same day online banking payment option
Added American Express as a payment type
Now we will talk about our implementation Process. The implementation process went very smooth . 4

5. Marketing
Marketing has not gone as well as I would have liked but as Nwe looks forward to the future with a E Business strategy that will allow for opportunities for enhanced marketing..

6. Web Messaging
This is a picture of our Corporate web site which is one way we marketed our pay by test option.

7. Bill Insert
NorthWestern Energy uses what we call Energy Connections as a bill insert

8. Payments Brochure

9. Employee Communication

10. Comparison
Let’s talk about where we were and were we are today,

11. Start of program…
Last year when I last presented at this conference we had under 100 customers using this option although it had only been offered for a few months and had very little marketing.

12. Today…
You can see that over the past year we have grown our numbers from under 100 to over a 1,000. We have only ran two marketing campaigns.

13. Pay by Text: Channel Shift
Payment options was added to the Ivr located in Mt in March 2010 and to the Ivr in Sd in Feb 2011.

14. Email with PDF attachment
Pay by Text: Case Study
with PDF attachment

15. PBT Notifications and Payments Key Learning's
Notifications to Payments
Approximately 58% of enrolled users paid electronically within 10 days of the notification
23% of notified customers paid via the text within the first 24 hours of notification
Of the people that received a message and paid, 55% of the notified customers that eventually paid through a Speedpay channel paid via the text message
The remaining 45% using other channels (primarily IVR) transacted much closer to their due date; volume ramps up in these channels three days after send
New customers to electronic
To date approximately 1,300 customer have enabled PBT notifications and 92% have transacted at least once through an electronic channel
267 of these customers had no prior electronic transaction utilization
I think this slide tells a great story how many other payment channels do you have that you receive 23% payment with in 24 hours?
I’m pleased that we had 267 customers that had never paid electronically make a electronic payment..

16. Summary
In summary NWE has been very happy with the success of implementing SMS into our payment options.
If you are considering implementing SMS I encourage you to get with the vendors today.