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Benchmarking typical customer care processes -why does a specific task sometimes take so long,and other times so little?

Session 12: Optimising Billing ProcessesSpeaker: Klemens Gutmann

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The Presentation

A. Present SituationMotivation for this Analysis

B.Facts & Figures Describing the Deficits:-- Time Efficiency, Error Efficiency, Output&Training Efficiency --

Search for the Reasons of these Deficits-- Time Efficiency, Error Efficiency, Output&Training Efficiency --

C.How to Solve It

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The Speaker

Born: 1964

Study: Computer Science

Late 80ies: Fraunhofer Gesellschaft ISI, Karlsruhe (Germany)

90ies: Co-founder/director of Teleport Sachsen-Anhalt GmbH(Telecommunications, today 30 employees)

Since 1996: Co-founder/director of regiocom GmbH(IT & BPO services for the energy sector, today 320 employees)

Since 2003: Chairman of the Committee on Telecommunications and IT,German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), Berlin

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A. Present Situation in Germany /1

Cost pressure on utilities will continue to increase due to new regulation(regulated conveyance fee expected soon)

Billing and Customer Care represent a substantial potential for cost efficiencyincrease

Utilities presently put substantial effort into optimizing their mass customercare processes

Ongoing sector work to provide standardized models for mass customer careprocesses and the interfaces between them

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A. Present Situation in Germany /2

As to the field of Billing and Customer Care:

All larger utilities operate own call centers or subcontract call center servicecompanies, managed along performance parameters;Example:- solving/serving 90% and more of the customers requests withthe first call/first letter

- offering an 80/20 telephone service, even in peak hours(= responding 80% of all incoming calls within 20 seconds)

- responding to telefax requests within 48 hours (E-Mail: 24 hours)

SAP IS-U is absolutely predominant among larger utilities in Germany

Most IS-U users run CIC as the interface for their call center software

Some operate SAPs CRM module to acquire additional customer data

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A. Motivation for the subsequent analysis

The same persons

- working on the same processes- working on an SAP IS-U application

work with different time efficiency for different utilities

produce different number of errors and misentries

work with output formats (screen/print) of absolutely heterogeneous quality

require different training effort

Duration of the analysis: 2 weeks during June 2005Dimensions of the analysis: 4 teams supporting 4 different utilities

average team size: 10 persons

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B. Facts & Figures /1

Differences in Time Efficiency (sec.) Ratio Fastest : Slowest

New Customer from abroad moving in 1 : 1,5

Creating the data record for bank account 1 : 2information (automatic bank collection) and fill it in

Changing the monthly advanced payment plan 1 : 2,5

Telephone-based meter reading (inbound) 1 : 2

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Differences in Error Efficiency

Plausibility checks are sometimes not compulsory and can be easily clicked away;Examples include- input of meter readings- manual input of -amounts

Plausibility checks are of different quality and accuracy

Usually no compulsory double check of entries of potentially wrong largeamounts(e.g. entries of large debits & credits)

In some cases, processing a move-in or move-out is possible without updating themeter reading

In some cases it is possible to completely overwrite customer names and addresseswithout any further check (confirmation letter, check against geographical and addressdatabases

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Differences in Output Format and in Training Effort

All relevant information available on a single initial screen(name/address, all contracts, all premises, all debits, critical earlierevents) in other cases, this information is spread over several screens

In some cases, the presentation of accounts statement and paymenthistory is absolutely incomprehensible to the customer;if necessary, employees have to build a comprehensible MS-Exceloverview by hand

Easy-to-handle, workflow-driven systems require up to 30% less training

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B. Search for the Reasons /1 -- Time Efficiency

Time Efficiency of the User Interface # Mouse Clicks(Min / Max)

New Customer from abroad moving in 42 / 71

Creating the data record for bank account 6 / 13information (automatic bank collection) and fill it in

Changing the monthly advanced payment plan 8 / 12

Telephone-based meter reading (inbound) efficiency 6 / 14

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Time Efficiency of the User Interface # Data Entries(Min / Max)

New Customer from abroad moving in 14 / 34

Creating the data record for bank account 3 / 7information (automatic bank collection) and fill it in

Changing the monthly advanced payment plan 1 / 2

Telephone-based meter reading (inbound) 2 / 5

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Time Efficiency of the User Interface --Weighted Combination: 3 x #Data Entries + 1 x #Mouse Clicks

New Customer from abroad moving in

Creating the data record for bank accountinformation (automatic bank collection) and fill it in

Changing the monthly advanced payment plan

Telephone-based meter reading (inbound)


84

15

173

34

1118

12 29

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B. Search for the Reasons /4 -- Error Efficiency

Error Efficiency of the User Interface-- Good Bad Examples--No. 1

Example: Utility wants to enrich customer data base by date of birth (foridentification purposes); Service Center is requested to ask for birth date inevery call where customer date are changed or checked;Problem: - data field date-of-birthis located in a sub menue

- it is not compulsory- it does not pop up automatically if still empty- system integrator says he needs over 1 MM to change that

Consequence: Error Rate over 20% during the first month of the project

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Example: Processing a customer switch requires to insert the presentcustomers debit balance into different data field of the system;SC employees are told to do it manually, but often use copy&paste.Problem: - data field cannot be disabled for copy&paste

- no check between the two data fields- no plausibility check in general- system integrator says he needs a mayor effort to change that

Consequence: Per 1 million inserts, several dozen serious errors occur(e.g. copy-pasting a metering result into the -debit field)

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Example: Calculating customer credits&debitsProblem: SC employees sometimes have to process and confirm large

credit and debit amounts- plausibility checks often do not provide correct results- no enforcement of a second-set-of-eyes-workflow- accounting entries with 5 or 6 digits go into the books withoutelectronically enforced and documented approval procedure

- system integrator says he needs a major effort to change that

Consequence: Per 1 million inserts, around a dozen serious errors occur

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Error Efficiency -- SummaryBasic Experiences

Ex-post correction of errors alwaysrequires more time than doing things properly right from the beginning

Criticalprocesses have to be double-checked more often than others, e.g.- changing the payment plan: up to 30% of all processes are selectedstatistically and double-checked

- Move-in / move-out: 10% - 15% double checking on average- Less critical processes: < 10% double checking

Every error that has been prevented by the system (guided workflow,plausibility check, compulsory double-check, etc.) saves time & cash

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B. Search for the Reasons /8 -- Output & Training Efficiency

Output Formats

User Interface of the Billing System:Good Practice: All relevant customer information at a glanceBad Practice: relevant facts are distributed over submenus/masks (e.g.relevant debits, problematic debit history, info on other related installations)

Customers overview of payments history:Good Practice: Billing system creates printed overview of payment historythat can be understood by a normal customerBad Practice: printed overview has to be compiled manually from the billingsystem into an MS Excel overview, including manual explanations.

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Recommendation:

A Systemstructuring anddocumentingthe workflow iseasier to train

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Reality:

Systems provide graphicallysupported menu structure,but little guidance

Substantially highertraining effort

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C. How to Solve It /1

What do we need to improve the situation ?

Some kind of overlaysystem over the existing billing system

A system that guides the operator along the workflow

A system that allows to optimize the user interface along criteria of timeefficiency (# data entries, # mouse clicks, # masks and sub menus)

A system that allows to-- implement new plausibility checks-- configure new workflows (e.g. double check procedures / 2nd set of eyes)-- consistency checks between different data entries-- build comprehensive overview masks

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Architecture of asolution in an SAPenvironment:

SAP IS-U

CIC

SAP CRM(in some cases)

SAP R3

FI

Bank

Acc

ount

sM

anag

emen

t

OverlaySystem

SAPScripting

BAPI /RFC

Acc

ess

with

norm

al u

serr

ight

spl

usre

ad-o

nly

right

sfo

rspe

cific

tabl

es

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Creating efficient overviews masks asentry into the existing billing system

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With overlay objects guiding the workflow

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With a step-by-stepdocumentation ofand guidancethroughthe workflow

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However:simply running a new piece of software as such

does not solve the problems

---

But it enables you to seriously start tackling them

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