Q: Trends in Customer Care in Utility Companies. Ans: There are some very substantial trends we see in the utilities industry especially when we look at the customer care aspect of the industry. As all of us know the industry is actually transitioning from essential services to customer services kind of industry and that has created some material impacts on how players in this industry are performing and are actually looking at the space. The four key trends that I actually see; one is increasing competition, so instead of government players that had access to customers by just the geography that was given to them, now there are multiple players and they all try to get access to the customer. The second trend that we see is increasing difference between the expectation of customers and the costs that these services are available at, which is basically because of increasing fluctuation in oil prices, significant variation in weather leading to different usage in different parts of the year. And this certainly creates a significant challenge for the industry. The third one that we see is an increasing focus on being environmentally and socially aware, so there is a need for companies in the utility industries to ask themselves and their customers to use the resources more responsibly so that there is more that’s available for the future generation and for the fuel-poor today. All of this is creating an environment where the players in the industry have to me much more sophisticated in the way they are handling customers, their needs are much more higher in both in terms of the value of what they get and their environmental responsibility and also in the service that they expect. They also are now getting options from multiple different people, multiple different types of fuel sources, so this entire move from being an essential services to a competitive consumer services environment is causing multiple trends in the utilities industry that has significantly changed this space and the way they interact with consumers. Q: Challenges faced by utility companies in Customer Care. Ans: As the utility industry is moving from being an essential service to a consumer service, clearly that creates a lot of opportunity than challenges. I think the most fundamental opportunity there is to build a brand. Most industries face the exact opposite problem; they have brands that start getting commoditized as multiple options are available. In some ways it is a great thing that the utility industry is able to now start building brands, where it was actually accommodating service earlier. Today British Gas can go to its customers in Britain and say that they stand for being the solution to all your problems as far as utilities are concerned. And that is a new ability that they have, but it is also a very daunting task and that’s really one of the biggest challenges that the utility companies today have. The other challenges are obviously one of keeping costs under control, the input costs are going up, weather is progressively colder or at least they are more fluctuating. The expectation that customers have had gone up, so that the need to maintain costs in a manner that it is a competitive advantage is actually a very significant challenge. The third, which is again a challenge and an opportunity is now that this industry competes for customers, having consumer analytics has a significant advantage to attract the right consumer, to build profitability, to give them the right offers, to help them choose between different fuel sources, environmentally correct options, reducing usage of electricity and gas, breaking the right tariff in a fluctuating price environment. All of those things are actually very essential to know how to offer these different solutions to the customers, which requires a very good understanding of your consumer base, good analytics and probably an ability to test new strategies before you launch them. I actually think these are three very fundamental challenges; one of creating a brand, second of managing costs of servicing, and third of having a very strong consumer analytics and testing environment. Q: How can Outsourcing help in Customer Care? Ans: How does outsourcing help utility companies improve their customer care operations? I think in multiple ways, by helping them address the challenges that they are facing today. The three primary ways I can see; one is in improving the customer interaction. Second is in managing the costs in a more affective and productive manner. Third is in creating an analytical environment that helps test strategies and launch those things that are really valuable for the long terms. Let me take some examples here. In a utility company wanting to respond to their customers 24X7, available all the time, improving the interaction by responding to them within less than 24 hours for any email or letter interactions that they have, those types of situations are possible because of the outsourcing industry’s access to large-scale talent, which is available in a 24X7 fashion. I think that is a material advantage for some of our customers who can offer those while their competition doesn’t have the ability to offer those by not accessing outsourcing. Second example I would take is that of improvement in productivity. Because outsourcing industry has a very strong focus on measuring and managing productivity by identifying through interactions with customers what are value added actions and what are not, our six sigma and lean efforts are almost focused on that. We have consistently improved productivity of the work that we do for our clients in contact centers either on the telephone or on email and bytemail by 5-10% year-on-year. That is possible because of the focus on improvement in productivity. The third one, which is probably the most strategic is helping analyze customer interactions with utility companies to figure out what is the right strategies for them; pricing strategies, debt analytics, strategies regarding what channel of contact is best in them and this can also be used to test strategies before they are rolled out. I think those are the primary ways by which outsourcing helps utility companies improve their customer care. Q: How has WNS helped improve Customer Care for utility companies? Ans: So how do outsourcing companies help utility companies in their customer care processes? In multiple ways, actually we at WNS have helped our clients in improving their customer service and satisfaction scores, improving the overall productivity of their operations and in enabling them identify and launch new strategies. So those are the three fundamental ways. How does customer satisfactions scores get impacted by good outsourcing? I think fundamentally in two ways; one is because of availability of good talent and across the clock 24X7 availability that allows people to get responses to their phone calls and their emails and correspondence with very quick turnaround. The other one is because of the availability of multi-skilled environments in outsourcing companies. So not only are people taking calls but at WNS we would have a fairly well staffed quality team that is analyzing the work to find out what are different possibilities of improvement. There would be a team that is actually targeted to improve productivity. So in that way you are improving the effectiveness of the interaction with the customers and that’s why we have seen improvement for our clients in the net promoter scores by 40-60% in some situations, which is massive for them when they compete with other companies in the market. Talking about productivity, cost efficiency has been clearly a very significant value that outsourcing companies give, not only do they get 30-40% straight bottomline cost improvement by using an offshore outsourcing company, it actually is an ongoing improvement because of the six sigma and lean processes that we have, that analyze customer care processes. We have seen upwards of 5-10% improvement in productivity year-on-year with clients that we have interacted with, I know that there are opportunities of doing even more with transformation capabilities that we do have and as we partner with clients we are using. The third one is more strategic as in an outsourcing environment analyst and quality personnel are looking at the customer interactions, analyzing them to find what customer is really valuing what type of products. So the ability to target right tariff, right debt tools, right channel of communication to customers, so that you waste less and have a better interaction with customer, testing such strategies before you roll them out allows utility companies by interacting with… Q: Factors to consider when outsourcing Customer Care. Ans: First, bear in mind that there should be good internal senior level sponsorship to take on this extremely important task of outsourcing. Second, it is important to find the right partner for doing so. And in finding the right partner, I would say look at three things. One is great operational capability in delivering what you are talking about because eventually you are taking your prized customers to interact with another company. Second is look at someone who has a partnership approach, as the relationship you’re your outsourcing partner matures, many different situations will come up and they need to be flexible. So just having a low cost environment, which is not flexible to different needs that you might have in the future is not likely to be a very strong choice. Third is look at the company that is investing in building capabilities and expertise in the area that you are in, in the area of utilities because that would be so important for delivering good high value solution to your customers. So that’s what I would say, look for operationally excellent company, which has a partnership approach of co-investing with you, and someone that is investing in building expertise in the utilities field. That eventually come and help you and your customers.

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