Retail and Customer Operations Services

Bill and Correspondence Optimization: Optimizing bills and correspondence represents a significant opportunity for utilities. By improving the readability and usability of correspondence, Accenture experience has shown that utilities can reduce inbound call volumes, average handle time and outbound communications costs, reducing cost to serve and improving customer service. [PDF,257KB]

Multi-Channel Self Service: Across industries, many service providers are facilitating effective self service via multiple channels of interaction: online, telephone, mobile and SMS. Despite the success of self service in other industries, many utilities are lagging behind in realizing the full potential of these capabilities while new technologies like smart metering are making multi-channel customer self service more important than ever. [PDF, 754KB]

Contact Center Optimization: Facing increases in operating costs and decreases in operating margins, many utilities are targeting the contact center to reduce their cost to serve. Attempts to reduce contact center operating hours, trim budgets for management activities, suspend training plans or even cut headcount at the front lines of customer service may yield short-term financial results, however, the long-term implications to customer satisfaction and operational performance could be disastrous. [PDF, 292KB]

Smart Metering and Demand-Side Management Customer Operations: It is a simple fact that the smart grid and smart metering world has become a reality for many utilities, whether in the form of planning, preparation or actual deployment. The blanket "smart" terminology obscures the more complex fact that it means very different things to different utilities. There exists a wide array of possible combinations in how to deploy these smart technologies and how to use and apply them once in place. [PDF, 452KB]

Revenue Assurance: Past due customer bills, outbound collection calls, customer requests for payment plan enrollments and issuance of service disconnection notices have a serious impact on days sales outstanding, bad debt and revenue cycle cost-to-serve. [PDF, 367KB]

Revenue Cycle Operations Optimization: When it comes to operational efficiency and effectiveness, the opportunity to improve revenue cycle operations (RCO) tend to be underestimated. RCO includes meter reading, billing, invoicing, payments and credit management processes—back-office functions that typically represent the vast majority of the total cost in a customer care operation. [PDF, 602KB]

Customer Acquisition and Retention: The effectiveness of acquiring and retaining customers is often overlooked by retail utilities. However in a challenging environment, the value of an effective customer acquisition and retention strategy has never been greater. [PDF, 261KB]

Customer Experience Management: Accenture research has shown that satisfied customers cost less to serve and generate additional revenue, making customer experience a critical driver of financial performance. Yet, for utilities, customer interactions are infrequent, making each touch-point critical. [PDF, 215KB]

Operational Analytics for Customer Care: You cannot manage what you cannot measure. Retail utilities understand that this adage holds true in the realm of customer care. Many utilities struggle to assemble the “right” information to optimize operations. Accenture can help utilities optimize operations through data-driven insights—so they can trim costs prudently, pursue growth opportunities wisely and serve customers both more effectively and more cost-efficiently. [PDF, 709KB]

Customer Energy Management: Utilities are under increasing pressure to manage energy consumption. Capacity and capital constraints have made energy management a financial necessity. Meanwhile, customers and regulators are calling on utilities to take the lead in addressing climate change. Although many utilities have implemented mass-market energy management initiatives, customer segmentation and adoption remain significant barriers. [PDF, 619KB]

Demand-Side Management Customer Adoption and Relationship Management: Regardless of the various market models and regulatory frameworks driving utility adoption of smart grid and smart metering, the benefits from operational efficiencies, conservation and efficiency are evident. What is also clear is that this range of benefits is impossible to achieve without engaging the consumer. [PDF, 810KB]

Customer Solutions Transformation: For utilities, customer information solutions are the backbone of customer care operations. From customer care and metering to billing, payments and credit and collections, these applications are the backbone of the customer experience and support all aspects of billing and revenue collection. And yet, in most utilities, legacy systems are simply not equipped for today's challenges and opportunities. [PDF, 1.3MB]

Security Solutions: While technology advances can support enhanced operational efficiency and customer service, they also create complex security risks and threats. Whether malicious or accidental, security threats can create cascading—and costly—impacts to a utility. [PDF, 852KB]

Operations Support Services: Many utilities may carefully manage operations support, yet most fail to achieve the full benefits that an end-to-end capability can deliver. Without an end-to-end capability, your customer care environment is likely to face a number of key challenges. [PDF, 1.6MB]

Service Workforce Capability: If your organization is challenged by workforce optimization, you aren't alone. Many utilities are struggling to control customer operations costs without sacrificing service quality or long-term success. [PDF, 777KB]