DATA Collection GUIDE

1. APPA Customer Service Benchmarking DATA Collection GUIDE

2. Benchmarking Goals • Benchmarking remains one of the most important management tools to improve operations: • Assess Performance • Set Goals • Suggest Practice Changes • Reinforce Change Efforts • The purpose of this Data Specification Guide is to describe the overall goals of benchmarking and to describe the “rules” for providing data. • Customer Service Functions • Cost Definitions • Transaction Definitions • Unit Costs

3. Data Entry Instructions

4. General Data Gathering Instructions • Provide 2012YE or 2012/2013 Fiscal year data unless otherwise noted for all numeric and quantitative answers • If you can't answer a question, leave it blank. We give you the option to check “Not Applicable” or “Not Available” • Answer text questions concisely. • We're looking for fairly recent and valuable information that you consider worth sharing with other utilities. We'd be interested in efforts that failed as well as efforts that proved successful. Anything that other utilities can learn from. • Enter percentages as whole numbers: 2% = 2; 0.5% = 0.5. Do use the leading zeros before the decimal point. Do not include % sign • Do not enter %, $ or other signs with numeric data. This will cause data to be treated as text and cause it to graph incorrectly • Do not enter "," as a separator in large numeric values • Forgetting zeros at the end of a number: Large numbers that are collected from company reports are often reported (000's) of dollars. Often, when the person entering data copies these numbers, they forget to add the 3 zeros at the end of the number.

5. Data Entry Portal • 1QC uses a single data entry portal and login. You login once and you'll see all of the sections for your survey. If you've participated with us in the past, you'll also see last year's surveys. • More than one person can access the data entry portal at a time. However, only one person should be in entering data at a time. We have no way of indicating if more than one person is in the form. You need to coordinate the data entry effort or only have a single person performing data entry. • All users get the same user name and password.

6. Data Entry Gateway • To access any of the data entry forms, go to our website www.1qconsulting.com and find Data Entry Gateway under “Benchmarking Community”. From there, follow the link to login. • From the data entry gateway, you are also able to download all of the supporting documents.

7. Login • After you click link for “On-line Data Entry Access” you'll see the login screen. Enter the username and password combo we provided. • While you are able to reset your password, please don't. We will have to set it back to the one we issued. If you forget your password, please contact us. • Using the “Keep me Logged In” button will keep you from having to reenter your user name/password combo each time you return.

8. Data entry Portal • Once you log in, you'll see the portal below. • To enter data, check the box next to the section or “survey” you want to respond to and the click the “Respond” button at the top of the list. That will bring up a separate window with the data entry fields.

9. Data Entry Instructions • Finding a specific question: most browsers offer a find function which is the best way to find a specific question to edit. “ctrl-F” launches the find function. • Data is saved when you move to the next page using the buttons at the bottom of the screen. • There is a Not Applicable option. • You can resume entering data at anytime or resume the survey to edit your answers.

10. Comparing Historical Data • For returning members… • If you wish to see how you answered a question last year you can open last year's survey side-by-side with this year’s survey. • Then find the matching questions and adjust the screens so that you can see the two questions to compare your answers.

11. Status summary AND PRINTING • On the last page of the section you will find a link that will show you your answers to the survey

12. Problems? Let Us Know • Note, we have tried to thoroughly beta test our software, but there may still be a few issues we missed.  Feel free to let me know the minute you run across any problems.  They can usually be fixed in less than 24 hours.

13. Data Collection Guide

14. Customer Service Functions • A convenient way to capture costs is along basic organization functions which are common to most utilities . . . • Customer Contact • Call Center • Local Office • IVR/Web • Contractors • Credit Inbound calls • Back Office • Billing • Payment Processing • Credit Office and Outbound calls • Field Service • Change of Account • Billing Investigations • Credit Field • Meter Reading • Meter Reader • Mobile AMR • Fixed Network AMI Areas of to be excluded: • Escalated complaints handling • Energy Audit/Energy Efficiency Group • CIS

15. General Definitions: Customer count • Questionnaire: In the questionnaire we ask for accounts [question #5]. We want you to count a customer in every category for which they receive service. So a customer receiving electric, gas, and water would be counted in all three categories. • Reporting: In the report we will use both accounts and meters as denominators. In some cases we multiply the number of accounts by the number of commodities billed on that account. This will produce some adjusted numbers that get at the extra cost of serving an account that receives multiple commodities. • Multi-Counted Accounts = We add the number of accounts for individual commodities to get the total (the sum of question #5). • Customer Count (internal) = The count you use internally to represent the number of customers you have. This is the one reported on annual reports and other documents. • Multi-Counted Metered Accounts = We add together only those categories in question #5 that have a meter. Combined Internet with Telecom, if offered

16. Cost Spreadsheet • The costs can be better understood in spreadsheet format:

17. Customer Service Functional Costs • Costs can be broken down into basic categories • General: • Company Labor: direct, supervisions, support • Contract Labor (including temps, seasonal) • Contracted Services • Technology • Function-specific items: • Vehicles (Meter Reading, Field Service) • Transaction fees (Billing, Payment, Credit) • Telecommunication Charges (Contact Center, Meter Reading) • Materials (Billing, Payment, Credit) • Postage (Billing, Payment, Credit) • Other • Write-offs

18. Costs Excluded • Do not include costs related to any of the following: • Overheads (we ask for your standard adder) • Pensions and Benefits (we ask for your standard adder) • Facilities purchase, rent, leasing or maintenance costs. We have found these to be too variable between companies. • CIS costs: whether O&M, purchase or lease costs. We have found these to be extremely variable among utilities based upon capitalization policies, life cycle costs, and chargeback policies. • Meter purchase, installation, removal, retrofit, programatic changeout or maintenance costs. • Any costs associated with new customers where a meter does not currently exist (includes meter upgrades) • Capital spending

19. Cost Definitions

20. Cost Definitions: functional

21. Cost Definitions: Functional

22. Technology types to be Included Meter: • Handhelds • Routing software • Telecommunications • Remote disconnect • MV 90 • GPS Bills: • Inserters • Web/email, bill presentment • C/I billing software (MV 90) Payment: • Image processor • Slitter/sorter • Interface w/kiosks • Routing software for off-site payments Credit: • Behavioral scoring • Predictive dialer • Credit optimization software • Contact Center: • IVR • ACD • Schedule Software • Workforce Mgmt • Multi-channel processing • Web • Payment Kiosks • VOIP • Web/email routers or multi-channel processing • Field: • Mobile data • Scheduling • GPS • Telecommunications • Routing software • Dispatching software NOTE: CIS is not included

23. General Definitions: safety

24. Staffing Guidelines • Include all W-2 employees – people who work on your payroll. These may be full-time or part-time. • Include Contract employees – people you supervise, but who receive payment through an invoice (1099 employees). These may be full-time or part-time. • Include supervisors and managers. Include a person in an activity if they spend at least 50% of their time on that activity, you can indicate they are 0.5 FTEs. If a person divides their time so that they don’t spend at least 50% of their time on an activity they probably should be in the “Shared FTEs” category. Only include high level executives and directors if they devote their time to the Customer Service function. • When calculating FTE value use 2080 as the denominator. • Outsourcing: If you outsource an entire function, do not attempt to turn that into FTEs.

25. Staffing Definition

26. Staffing Categories • Staffing categories: • Full time FTEs = W-2 Employees assigned full time to a function. • Part time FTEs = W-2 Employees who spend less that 32 hours per week on a single function. • Shared FTEs = W-2 Employees who spend part of their time working on several different functions. • Contract FTEs = Contracted people (not companies) who work on a specific function.

27. Contact Center Definitions • Contact: A completed customer call, local office transaction, IVR, or internet transaction. Do not include uncompleted transactions (e.g. abandons). Do not include general switchboard informational calls. • The following is description of types of transactions included: • New Customer or Change of Account [excluding credit related turn on or off or any meter install] = A customer request for a turn-off of an existing account; a new customer requests a turn-on of an existing account. Do not include applications for new meters. • Gas/Water Leak or Electric Interruption = A contact about an electrical outage, gas leak, water leak or other premise related issue. • High bill or billing issue = Any contact related to billing amount such as inquiries, adjustments, and high bill complaints. On-line viewing of bill. • Pay Bill = Include calls for debit or credit card payments, electronic check payments. • Credit [arrange credit extension, etc] = Any contact related to a past due notice, including payment arrangements and reconnect of service.

28. Contact Center Definitions

29. Contact Center Definitions (cont.) • Performance Measures • Average speed of answer (ASA) = Average speed of answer for a call answered by a company rep after the call leaves the IVR. Do not count abandons as completed calls. We capture both ASA without Self-serve (IVR) and blended with IVR. • Calls answered within 30 seconds = Percentage of calls answered by a company rep within specified time period. Include abandons in the total calls offered (the denominator), but do not include in calls answered (numerator). • Abandon rate = Percentage of inbound calls abandoned over total incoming calls offered to customer reps. Do not Include calls blocked at switch and/or limited calls if any. Calls abandoned within a reasonable period of time, 5 seconds, should not be counted as abandoned or handled calls. • Other • Call Center Technology = ACD, call monitoring software, etc. • Local office = Local offices are places staffed by utility employees where customers can pay bills or perform other transactions

30. Counting Contacts • CSR answered calls & IVR calls – completed calls (not abandons) • Local office – customer visits • Web contact – log-ons to account or hits to a specific type of page (to be determined, but includes pages that provide information that avoid a phone call) • E-mail/Letters/faxes – incoming and outgoing Do not count paper bill presentments or mailed in customer payments

31. Field Service Introduction • Field Service focuses on activity at the meter and includes: • Billing Issues - High bill investigation in the field, either customer or internally initiated, check read, rereads, meter tests in conjunction with investigation, meter change out in conjunction with investigation. • Change of Account – new customer to service territory, customer moving within service territory; not greenfield site • Credit disconnections and reconnections, notice delivery, field collections • Field Service policies have influence on activity costs • Change of account estimating rules • Hard vs. Soft Disconnect • Credit policies • AMI usage Even if these activities are performed in some other area of your company, we want them included in the Field Service section so that all companies are consistent. Within reason… When you have meter electricians or line crews performing some of these activities, we want to capture the activity and costs when possible, but we don’t need to capture the employees.

32. What’s not included • Gas odor response • Programmatic meter change-outs or tests • Revenue Assurance orders (e.g. remove meters, install locking rings, etc. • Meter installations at a brand new service location; service upgrades; larger meter installs and related activities • Restoration Specialists (e.g. Electric Troubleshooters) • Linemen, Line construction or O&M • Energy efficiency activities (typically part of Marketing Department)

33. Field Service Definitions • A completed field order is one where the assigned activity has been performed. CGI or Can’t Get In does not count as a completed order. A trip to a service location that involves multiple commodities (e.g. gas and electric change of account) is considered as multiple trips. If multiple activities are performed at a location, count as only one trip. The types of orders are as follows: • Billing = High bill investigation in the field, either customer or internally initiated, check read, rereads, meter tests in conjunction with investigation, meter change out in conjunction with investigation • Change of Account = Soft Connect/Disconnect (e.g. Read in or read out); Hard disconnect/reconnect (e.g. physically turn off service). Does not include a new meter set. • Turn-on/turn-off for seasonal customers • Field Credit = Leave notice, collect payment, disconnect for non-pay, reconnect after a disconnect • Field Service planning, scheduling and dispatch • Do not include field generated or programmed meter change-outs. • Hard Disconnect=A hard disconnect means that one of the commodities is physically turned off

34. Meter Reading • Meter Reading covers • Regular monthly Manual reads • AMR/mobile reads • AMI/Fixed network reads Primarily for billing purposes • Does not include • check reads, re-reads, etc., which are included in Field Service. • Transactions • Meter Read = Scheduled meter reads. If multiple meters are read at a premise, count as multiple reads. Include AMI/AMR, but only count one read per month for billing purposes. Trips to take a reading for a change of account or as part of a billing investigation (e.g. re-read) should NOT be included instead these are in Field Service. • Performance Measures • Error Rate = Number of errors identified through the billing system before the bill is mailed, plus errors identified by the customer.

35. Billing Definitions • Transactions • Bills Issued = Count one per customer, even if multiple commodities or multiple meters at a premise (e.g. a “consolidated bill”). • If a summary bill is produced (e.g. usage at multiple locations is summarized), count each individual location as a bill, as well as the summary bill. • Count any e-bills sent, but do not double count any mailings. If you send both paper and electronic, count as one bill. • Include any final bills sent in this count. • Performance Measures • Error Rate = Account errors identified after the bill is delivered to the customer. A change that affects multiple months is still considered one adjustment. Does not matter if the account is re-billed or just adjusted on a subsequent bill. Do not include courtesy adjustments such as waiving of late fees.

36. Payment Processing Definitions • Transactions • Payment = Payments processed should roughly equal bills issued. However, • Multiple payments for one bill are considered multiple payments. So if a cash customer pays a little each week on one bill that counts as multiple payments • One check for multiple bills counts as multiple payments. So if a customer pays based upon a summary bill that covers 13 locations, it will count as 14 payments. Since that is the effort required to process those payments. • Include all payments whether sent via mail, paid in local office, payment agency or pay station, paid on-line or through IVR or call center. • Performance Measures • Payments that have been posted accurately to the right accounts as a percent of all payments • Other • Payment locations = Payment agencies; local offices, pay stations • Payment Agency = Payment agency is a third party location where customers can pay their bills usually with a processing fee paid for by the customer • Cashiers in local offices should be included with this function since their primary function is to take payments. Other local office reps who handle activities in addition to taking payments are part of the contact center.

37. Credit Office Activity • Notices issued, determination of disconnections and reconnections, payment arrangements when handled in the credit area (separate from contact center), outbound calls, policy development and execution • Include any collection agency or skip trace costs in contracted services • Only include credit postage if a separate credit mailing, otherwise put in billing. • Include outbound credit calls • Include credit scoring transaction fees • Credit & Collections field activities should be included in Field Service • Bankruptcy

38. Credit Definitions • Transactions • Credit and Collections = Notices issued, payment arrangements • Performance Measure • Write-offs = Uncollectible expense. Net percent of total revenue written off (e.g. less any recoveries). Goal is the actual number written off during the year. Any recoveries (less fees) should be subtracted from gross write-offs. • Percent Past Due 60 Days = Percent of bills unpaid at 60 days. Note for most utilities this is balance due at second bill.

39. Credit Definitions • Other • Credit & Collections field activities = Credit disconnections and reconnections, notice delivery, field collections. These should be included in Field Service, not in Credit • Collection Agency cost = Include any collection agency or skip trace costs in contracted services • Credit postage = Only include if a separate credit mailing, otherwise put in billing. • Outbound calls = Calls made by the company to remind customers to pay their overdue bills, make payment arrangements, etc. Part of Credit & Collections costs

40. Thank you for your Input and Participation! Primary Contact: Debi McLain Debi.McLain@1QConsulting.com760-272-7277 About 1QC First Quartile Consulting is a utility-focused consultancy providing a full range of consulting services including continuous process improvement, change management, benchmarking and more. You can count on a proven process that assesses and optimizes your resources, processes, leadership management and technology to align your business needs with your customer’s needs. Visit us at www.1stquartileconsulting.com | Follow our updates on LinkedIn Satellite Offices Corporate Offices California 400 Continental Blvd. Suite 600El Segundo, CA 90245(310) 426-2790 Maryland 3 Bethesda Metro Center Suite 700Bethesda, MD 20814(301) 961-1505 New York | Texas | Washington | Wisconsin