1. Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Creating a Customer Centric Culture
Elisabeth S. Brinton,
Chief Customer Officer
SMUD
Presentation 1.1.1
Powering forward. Together.

2. Topics to cover What is a customer centric culture?
Why should you care?
Our approach
Key learnings, successes and challenges
Customer experience evolution: where do we go from here?

3. Sacramento Municipal Utility District
About SMUD

4. Sacramento Municipal Utility District
About SMUD
Not-for-profit public utility
Founded in 1946
Nation’s 6th largest community owned electric utility
Operates under the authority of the California Constitution and the Municipal Utilities District Act

5. Sacramento Municipal Utility District
SMUD Snapshot
Service area population
Budget
Employees
1.4 million
$1.67 billion
2,034
Service area
Customers
Credit rating
900 square miles
599,826
AA- S&P
A1 Moody’s
A+ Fitch

6. Geography and SMUD Service Territory
Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Geography and SMUD Service Territory
SMUD Service Territory
Sacramento, CA

7. Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Diverse customer base
Sacramento was cited by Time magazine as America's most ethnically and racially integrated city in 2002.
Regional demographics
African American: 10%
Hispanic: 20%
Asian: 13%
Caucasian: 52%
Other: 5%
County population
1.45 million

8. Mix of customers served
Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Mix of customers served
Commercial customers drive our sales.
Res: $569210M
Comm: $695375M
Quantity of segment served per quantity of meters, the following is the information:
% Quantity Res: 88%
% Quantity Commercial: 12%
600,000 meters
1.4M end-users

9. Why are We Building a Customer Centric Culture?
Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Why are We Building a Customer Centric Culture?

10. SMUD’s business is transforming
New business models
Distributed grid and energy storage
Increased regulatory and legislative pressure
New players/ competition in the market
Customers with more choices and control
Economic recovery
Access to real-time, personalized information and solutions
SMUD
CUSTOMER = “I WANT WHAT I WANT WHEN I WANT IT.”
-- “Age of the Customer” with evolving, high expectations.
-- Empowered customers with access to a proliferation of channels, information, and choices.
-- Decision making by price, quality of life, greenhouse gas priorities, self reliance.
SMUD BUSINESS = NO MORE CUSTOMER EXCLUSIVITY
-- Decentralized generation, customer-owned generation, competitors entering energy space.
-- Disintermediation
-- Utilities required to lower GHG. SMUD customers expect SMUD to be environmental responsible.
-- Competitors vying for customer attention, loyalty and revenue.
-- Increasingly more regulated market for utilities. Other entities entering energy space not as regulated.

11. Leveraging new value streams to deliver innovative and personalized services requires a new approach
We are in a transition from a utility-centric industry to a more consumer-driven industry.
The traditional utility of a “poles and wires” organization sending one-way energy to the customer is being displaced by service companies, both inside and outside of the traditional energy sector.
Distributed generation, demand response aggregators, energy management companies, data companies, billing services, and many others are providing critical value-add services to utility customers.
Customers are seeking partners to help them create the future they want for themselves.
This expectation points to service innovation that goes beyond the status quo.
Going beyond the status quo involves preparing an organization’s culture and staff for change.

12. Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Distributed Environment
We are entering an era of a distributed utility environment where we’ll have a much more diverse relationship with our customers.
Customers are becoming more active participants on the grid, whether PEV, DG, DR, storage, or other options. The customer-utility relationship will be two-way, rather than the historical one-way.
The number and variation of interactions with customers will grow.
The one-size-fits-all approach won’t work in the future.
Customers are demanding customization and increasingly complex services at competitive costs.
Distributed generation, energy storage, and access to information shifts control to the consumer.
The amount of information and technology available to customers means that their needs are more complex.
The organization has to be prepared to serve this new, more sophisticated “customer of the future.”
Base knowledge needs to increase.
Job functions need to be modified.
Some may require more and/or better tools.
Cross-enterprise collaboration becomes even more critical to SMUD success.

13. Costs of negative experiences
Sacramento Municipal Utility District
Costs of negative experiences
Loss of customer loyalty and potential revenue erosion
Lost revenue due to customer seeking alternatives, such as customer sited distributed generation
Negative media
Longer call processing time
Added time for error correction
Multiple contacts
Increased back office work
Complaints to Board, regulatory agencies, and others
Claims against company
Negative experiences decrease revenue and increase the cost to serve.

14. Elements of a customer centric culture
High Touch
Relevance
Transparency
Flexibility
Simplicity
High Touch
Evolve the service experience by exceeding expectations and engaging customers in a partnership through all levels
Relevance
Use knowledge of customers to provide targeted, valuable information
Transparency
Demonstrate to customers how you think and operate, especially with billing and rates
Flexibility
Build new processes and procedures with the customer in mind
Simplicity
Be ruthless in providing the most simple, easy and intuitive experience as possible