Public Power - June 2008 - (Page 42)

Benchmarking Customer Service BY KEN BUCKSTAFF, DEBI MCLAIN AND TIM SZYBALSKI By giving utilities the settingtools—such as right assessing performance, goals, identifying practice changes and reinforcing change efforts—benchmarking remains one of the most important management tools to improve operations. Thirty public power utilities participated in the American Public Power Association’s 2007 customer service benchmarking survey, the fourth annual study of its kind. Participants in the study could compare their customer service metrics to other utilities and learn about both performance levels and trends in practices across the industry. Participants are from all across the country and represented a range of size and service approaches. Participant sizes range from just over 10,000 customers to more than 1 million customers. All offer electricity and most also offer either gas or water. The most difficult part of the survey was to get everyone (or almost everyone) to agree on how to count customers, whether it be through meters or accounts. To assess performance, we created profiles for each of the participants on cost, service level and safety scales. The summary table below provides a snapshot of the performance of the group. To put these results into perspective: • Costs are generally in line with the results obtained in published accounts of prior years’ results (although there were some methodological differences), and generally on a par with investor-owned utilities. The variation between minimum cost (50 percent of average) and maximum cost (200 percent of average) is striking. • Service levels were tracked for all the major areas of customer service and summarized for the participating utilities. For example, results in the call center were slightly worse for the group than last year, although again the real story is the large variation in service customers’ experiences. Abandoned calls are 1 percent for the best utility and 27 percent for the worst. • Safety is generally very good for customer service, especially considering meter reading is a job classification with the highest reportable incident rate of any group in utilities. While total costs tell one story, to assess a utility’s performance, a manager really needs to look at each function separately, and how they relate to each other. Each participant received a 126-page statistical report full of facts and figures. The pie chart on page 43 is an example analysis of Performance Profile Average Cost 2: Total Annual Customer Service Expense per Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $58.77 4: Total Annual Customer Service Expense less Uncollectibles per Customer . . . . . . . . . $52.15 11: Total Annual Contact Center Expense per Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $13.45 12: Total Annual Contact Center Expense per Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5.32 35: Total Annual Field Service Expense per Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $7.26 36: Total Annual Field Service Expense per Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $12.60 46: Total Annual Meter Reading Expense per Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $10.98 47: Total Annual Meter Reading Expense per Read. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $0.66 56: Total Annual Billing Expense per Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $10.57 57: Total Annual Billing Expense per Bill Issued . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $0.91 62: Total Annual Payment Processing Expense per Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5.82 63: Total Annual Payment Processing Expense per Payment Processed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $0.50 72: Total Annual Credit & Collections Expense per Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $11.51 74: Total Annual Credit & Collections Expense less Uncollectibles per Customer . . . . . . . . $4.07 76: Uncollectible Expense per Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $7.43 77: Uncollectible Expense as a Percent of Revenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.29% Service 22: Average speed of answer for calls answered by CSR (Contact Center) 76.11 24: Percent of calls offered that were answered in 30 seconds (Contact Center) 65.32% 26: Percent of calls abandoned (Contact Center) 8.30% 39: Average Wait to Get New Service 0.77 48: Meter reading errors identified before bills were sent to customers 2.02 50: Total Annual Meter reading errors per Read 2.64 Safety 8: OSHA recordable incident rate 1.76 9: OSHA lost time incident rate 0.34 42 JUNE 2008 Min Q1 Q2 Q3 Max $25.06 $45.56 $56.51 $22.65 $43.95 $50.62 $4.32 $8.53 $9.66 $1.20 $1.88 $2.78 $1.30 $3.81 $5.98 $2.30 $5.53 $8.10 $1.16 $7.20 $11.07 $0.07 $0.46 $0.61 $3.77 $7.74 $10.68 $0.33 $0.70 $0.85 $0.97 $3.67 $5.18 $0.06 $0.31 $0.45 $3.20 $5.60 $8.42 $0.00 $1.88 $3.35 $2.02 $2.72 $4.86 0.03% 0.11% 0.19% $69.90 $103.69 $58.10 $97.39 $15.02 $37.77 $4.19 $50.22 $8.94 $23.05 $13.69 $66.46 $14.65 $22.15 $0.87 $1.35 $12.34 $25.63 $1.03 $2.12 $7.33 $14.31 $0.61 $1.27 $15.98 $35.00 $4.79 $14.02 $9.55 $29.91 0.44% 0.90% # of Bars 28 28 29 29 29 28 29 29 28 28 28 28 26 2 27 26 27 22 27 30 29 25 30 30 3.00 20.00 47.00 121.50 240.00 3.00% 87.00% 74.50% 49.25% 98.00% 1.00% 4.00% 7.00% 10.00% 27.00% 0.00 0.25 1.00 1.00 2.00 0.00 0.27 0.86 2.40 20.00 $0.13 $0.45 $1.29 $3.24 $20.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.00 2.26 0.05 14.80 2.46 PUBLIC POWER

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Public Power - June 2008

Public Power - June 2008 Contents Perspective 10 Questions Finding Common Ground on Climate Change Solutions A Patchwork Approach to Renewable Energy Whose Grid Is It Anyway? The Little Utility That Could Benchmarking Customer Service Can Prairie Hay Power Your Town? Storming the Control Room Investing in the Smart Grid Coming of Age: Superconducting Cables Community Broadband Economic Development Customer Service Human Resources For Governing Boards Safety Parting Shot

Public Power - June 2008

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