Solutions for Utilities

According to Gartner, the average US utility company spends $42.50 per year, per customer, providing customer service. These costs can, and should, be far lower. They reflect a broad spectrum of activities including metering, billing, bill payment, collections and customer service. One of the most immediate cost savings opportunities is in the collections and recovery portion of this activity chain.

Being able to predict-with unparalleled accuracy—who will pay, when they will pay, and how much they will pay, provides an enormous cost saving opportunity. Here's just one example to demonstrate the magnitude of cost savings possible. Consider the cost to roll a truck for a non-pay disconnect—even in a non-union market. Then calculate the added cost associated with having to send another truck out a day or two later to reconnect. What if none of this had to happen because you knew who would pay?

Fastest Path to ROI

Intelligent Results delivers solutions designed for the utilities industry through a combination of PREDIGY software and consulting services designed to respond to unique client requirements. This approach provides freedom to act independently and a skilled support resource.

Improve Marketing

Competition for new customers, along with the need to up-sell existing customers, requires more effective prospect and customer segmentation. With Intelligent Results' solutions you can:

• Create market segments across the entire prospect/customer universe
• Maintain profitable market share and leadership
• Refine direct-mail acquisition strategy to maintain competitive edge
• Identify characteristics of loyal and valuable customers, and then target prospects with similar traits
• Optimize direct marketing spending
• Lower customer acquisition cost

Improve Collections

Many utilities have moved beyond business-based rules and generic scores to using predictive analytics and dynamic modeling to prioritize collections and recovery efforts. With Intelligent Results' predictive analytics software, utilities can now predict who, when and how much a customer or debtor will pay, as well as how best to reach them and which collection technique is most likely to cure an individual delinquency. With Intelligent Results' solutions, it's now possible to:

Optimize active account collections strategies through prioritization of:

• Letter campaigns
• Dialer campaigns
• Outbound calling

Optimize non-pay disconnect activity by predicting which accounts will:

• Reconnect
• Not reconnect
• Act favorably to an alternative treatment strategy
• Ultimately default

Optimize closed account recovery strategies by:

• Predicting which debtors will pay, when and how much
• Prioritizing accounts to work internally, outsource to agencies, or sell

DTE Energy Approach

Improving their ability to leverage available resources to profitably target accounts was the goal in DTE's search for the right predictive analytics package.

DTE developed strategies to drive collection performance utilizing different techniques, at different times, in an account's life-cycle. To optimize collections, DTE targets accounts for a specific treatment and level of effort. Decisions are based on the risk of the account not paying and charging off, balanced against available resources at any point in the process. To be effective, the targeting process needed to:

1. Segment accounts based on the likelihood of desired outcome
2. Clearly present the costs and benefits of the actions to be taken
3. Enable the decision made to be easily executed

Today DTE is able to better target which accounts to disconnect and to determine the right level of investment to make for each. ROI is measured immediately.

Read the full DTE Energy Case Study.

View the on-demand webinar, Improving Performance in Utilities, featuring DTE Energy.