ORLANDO - New Brunswick Power has improved their customer service centre through streamlining data and focusing on change management, according to NB Power's Jill Feero.
"We're introducing a whole new line of products and we can't afford to jeopardize our reputation and the need to meet our customer's needs," said Feero in a presentation at SAP's Sapphire 2008 conference in Orlando, Florida. Feero is NB Power's manager of performance customer service.
NB Power is a government-owned utility that interconnects and exports to the Maritimes and New England, with five operating companies, 360,000 customers and approximately 2500 employees.
NB Power began using SAP finance modules in the late 90's, and have since added many more modules, said Feero.
She noted that one of the business drivers for their customer service transformation is that they're trying to "meet the needs of the next generation."
"Customers expectations have changed", she added.
Their customer contact system (CCS) used by NB Power customer service agents was seen as not user friendly, the result of which was a high-turnover rate in agents, according to Feero.
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Lorie Flemming, team lead for IT projects at NB Power said that their Customer Service Delivery Project consists of a project team of IT, business and external resources, which are supplemented with SAP knowledge, project methodology and business process ownership.
She said that constraints include multiple SAP projects occurring simultaneously, as well as resource limitations. "We also have a nuclear plant undergoing an upgrade," said Flemming.
She noted that SAP recycling programs have been adapted by NB Power with respect to reduce, reuse and recycle.
"We are reducing IT work, and have a planned upgrade of SAP for 2010," she said. "Some of the guiding principles are to leverage existing functionality, and develop in consideration of future upgrades."
"We've been able to respond to the business needs effectively," she added.
With respect to reusing, NB Power has applied that concept to contract accounts, which allows customers to retain their same account number, something Fleming said they expect.
"We've done a significant amount of account maintenance and laid the groundwork for future enhancements."
Flemming said that process has been simplified, and master data creation has also been reduced.
"We wanted to achieve a 50 per cent reuse rate, so we needed to keep the process simple." Something they've clearly been successful in, as she noted NB Power achieved the 50 per cent reuse rate goal within the first few months of the project.
She explained that this was achieved through the development of reuse criteria, and that they also modified existing workflows.
With respect to recycling, NB Power implemented the customer contact system in 1999 with a tech upgrade in 2001. They were able to reduce the average transaction time, and streamline high volume customer service requests, said Flemming.
Best practices that have emerged from improving their customer contact centre as outlined by Flemming include the need to focus on change management, research and benchmarking, benefits realization, and a committed and an engaged steering committee.
"You need to have leadership committed and invested."
Feero noted that NB Power had struggled in this area, but that they are actively achieving their targets and goals.
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