Success Story: Utilities. Stream Energy

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1 Success Story: Utilities Stream Energy

2 Success Story Utilities Stream Energy Page 2 of 8 Stream Energy Texas, United States Industry Energy Number of Agents Customer Interactions 105,000/month IIn 2002, the state of Texas allowed new companies to enter its formerly regulated electricity market. These new players are known as Competitive Retail Electric Providers (CREPs), and that title perfectly describes Stream Energy. It is a competitive firm whose focus on top-notch customer service, loyalty and low prices has made it the state s fastest growing energy company. Headquartered in Dallas, Stream Energy purchases power from electricity producers and sells it to consumers, including residential customers, small businesses, and soon large commercial and industrial users. To succeed in the competitive business of supplying a commodity product, Stream differentiates itself by delivering a level of customer service not often found in the utility business. It has promoted a warm marketing approach that emphasizes person-to-person contacts. For example, its Ignite program has attracted 70,000 sales associates who gather and service customers for the firm via face-to-face interactions. And Stream chose not to outsource its contact center operations to another company. Instead, Stream offers a higher level of service with its contact center in Dallas. In addition, Stream customizes its electricity offerings to match customer needs. The firm rejects the traditional one-sizefits-all model that utilities traditionally employ. That model tends to make life easier for the utility company, not the customer and Stream fundamentally rejects any philosophy that suggests anything other than putting the customer first. Stream s success is evident in its extraordinary growth. The firm was founded in 2005 and expects to surpass $1 billion in revenue by the end of 2007, which may make it the fastest company to reach $1 billion in revenue in US business history. Stream has more than 230,000 customers in Texas and will soon enter gas and electricity markets in Georgia and elsewhere. Challenge As a new player in a recently deregulated industry, Stream is drawn to creative solutions that support its two core objectives: delivering excellent customer service and controlling overhead costs so customers can benefit from lower prices. Stream is innovative at its core, said Greg Martin, Manager Special Projects. Innovation is what keeps us lean.

3 Success Story Utilities Stream Energy Page 3 of 8 Genesys Business Consulting helped us understand new trends and develop a comprehensive three-year plan for the contact center. Stream is now well-positioned to offer customers a state-of-the-art contact center that is best-in-class in the utility space. Greg Martin Manager Special Projects, Stream Energy In 2006, in keeping with its spirit of resourcefulness, Stream sought out Genesys and its speech-enabled Genesys Voice Platform and Virtual Hold for Genesys solutions. Genesys Voice Platform gives customers 24/7 self-service access to their accounts, allowing them to perform simple tasks by issuing voice commands over the telephone. Virtual Hold for Genesys allows callers who are put on hold to hang up and receive a call from customer service at a time convenient for them, or when their turn in line arrives. These technologies promised to speed customer service, end the frustration of long hold times, decrease demand for agent time, and control costs by enabling the firm to offer personalized customer service without adding staff. But Stream did not merely implement the technology. The firm stepped back and took a long-view approach to customer service and managing future growth. Instead of simply installing the new Genesys technology, Stream asked itself questions about its approach to customer service: how should it organize contact center staff, when should self-service give way to assisted service, and other issues that had affected how the new applications would be implemented. It was a moment in which Stream proved that its commitment to customer service was for real, not for show. It was sort of an epiphany, said Martin. Our processes are continually evolving, and we recognized the need to have a long-term plan. We realized that we couldn t just dump technology in and call it a victory. Rather, we needed a seamless integration of technology and processes. Stream realized that technology had to support a customer care approach and take into consideration anticipated growth, individual customer attitudes and needs, costs, and new products. To take its highly attentive customer service experience to a whole new level, Stream needed a Customer Care strategy and a plan to execute it. This special attention to customer service is built-in to the firm s structure and plan for success. Its 70,000 Ignite Associates form the foundation of Stream s customer acquisition effort, and Stream must demonstrate its commitment to those Associates to keep them productive. Ignite Associates gathered customers in such an expedited fashion that Stream s initial customer counts far exceeded its expectations. Customer service is a key concern of Ignite Associates. Each Associate wants her customers well

4 Success Story Utilities Stream Energy Page 4 of 8 Challenge: Differentiate Stream from competitors in the deregulated Texas energy market by offering the best customer service in the business while planning for future growth Create new customer touch-points to improve customer and Ignite Associate experience Re-shape business model so that customer service is a function embraced and performed by all departments Avoid customer churn when customers approach the end of their initial service contracts taken care of. To that end, Ignite Associates made a promise to their customers they promised that Stream was committed to caring for its customers as if they were family. Overwhelmed by its early success, Stream Customer Care realized that it had dug itself a bit of a hole and quickly needed to deliver on the promise that it made. To do so, Stream Customer Care needed new tools and it needed a strategic partner. Stream sought out Genesys, Virtual Hold Technology and Nuance because of those companies experience in delivering the absolute best customer service in the world. At Stream, there is a direct link between service and growth. In the past, utilities didn t really need to be concerned with having excellent customer service. They had a captive audience, said Martin. Deregulated markets, on the other hand, allow REPs to compete for customers and force REPs to place a huge emphasis on customer service. Customer service can be a strategic differentiator and a competitive advantage, and Stream is committed to making it just that. Solution To ensure its contact center technology would yield the quality customer service its success depended upon, Stream solicited consulting proposals from five organizations. The energy firm was looking for a plan that would tie technology to business goals, results, and budgets. Stream chose to work with Genesys Business Consulting. Genesys was focused on our success, not on building a pipeline of business, said Martin. We wanted someone to show good faith and be a trusted advisor. And we felt a wave of excitement from Genesys that let us know we were going to be an important client. Genesys Business Consulting went to work in December when John Quaglietta arrived at Stream headquarters for a week of interviews, workshops, and observations. During this data collection phase, Quaglietta interviewed more than 20 people at Stream ranging from the Chairman to contact center agents and organized a three-hour workshop of 15 key Stream employees to determine the firm s short-term plans, long-term ambitions, and vision for customer service. He also observed contact center agents, listening to their customer calls and their concerns. There was a clear consensus at Stream about the centrality of customer service to the mission and success of the firm, said Quaglietta. And their growth ambitions made it clear they needed the contact center to stay a step ahead, ready to support the firm s next move.

5 Success Story Utilities Stream Energy Page 5 of 8 Results: Locked in a three-year strategic plan for the contact center that supports growth and delivers the superior customer service that is central to the firm s identity and success Transforming the culture of the firm to promote the idea that customer service is a function, not a department, which is supported by the strategic contact center plan Found in Genesys Business Consulting a trusted advisor not a sales organization that can be relied upon to supply honest and objective advice; and together with John Quaglietta, Thomas Trunnell and Shannon Lekas, the entire Genesys organization has since embraced the trusted advisor role Stream had a variety of goals for its contact center, which is called the Customer Care Center. It wanted all interaction channels voice, , chat, Web to be integrated, to promote a generous level of speechenabled self-service, and to provide the ability to easily select assisted service from within the self-service application. The firm also required that the customer information captured during the self-service session be forwarded to agents so customers would not have to repeat themselves. These goals and others, together with growth plans, called for a wide range of technologies including computer-telephony integration, workforce management tools to improve agent utilization, agent scripting to improve service, skill-based routing to deliver callers to the best resource, and even business process routing to link the Stream contact center with other departments to Streamline customer service processes. But Stream also made it clear that budgets were not unlimited. Technologies had to be in place to meet business needs as they arose, but they could not be installed so far in advance that they sat idle waiting for business growth to mature. Genesys Business Consulting developed a 101-page report that outlined a three-year plan to guide Stream toward its goals while respecting budgetary restraints. The report, called the Transformational Roadmap, is divided into five sections: Assessment of the firm s current customer strategy, technology, people and processes Creation of a customer service model with tangible attributes that support Stream s revenue, cost and quality goals A gap analysis that identifies what must be done to prudently balance cost, revenue and quality and achieve Stream s goals Three-year plan broken down into 12 quarterly sections to achieve vision The business case supporting the quarterly and overall recommendations Genesys Business Consulting delivered the final report to the Stream team in February during an all-day, sevenhour meeting involving Stream s managing directors,

6 Success Story Utilities Stream Energy Page 6 of 8 Genesys Solution: Genesys Business Consulting developed a 36-month plan that delivers ever greater contact center capabilities to match business growth, respect budgets, and weave customer service practices into the fabric of the firm Customer Satisfaction Program recommended and outlined by Genesys Business Consulting, will validate and quantify what Stream s customers need and want Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Strategy recommended and developed by GBC, will detail a standard operating procedure for three levels of severity to ensure that Stream s customer service will never be materially interrupted Chairman, and other executives. The report includes 42 recommendations that balanced the cost and quality of the contact center while ensuring it is prepared to support Stream s growth. Stream applauded the plan and adopted virtually all of it. Stream was so impressed with Genesys Business Consulting that the firm asked the consultants to help implement various parts of the Roadmap through Genesys Business Consulting took the time to really understand Stream s business realities and as a result was able to create a logical and applicable roadmap rather than a pie in the sky strategy that we couldn t use, said Martin. Results The Roadmap provided Stream with a realistic and affordable plan that aligns technology, people, budgets, and business goals to provide excellent customer service at every stage of the firm s growth. But perhaps even more importantly, the Roadmap expanded the way Stream can deliver customer service. The firm always expressed its devotion to customer service through the dedication of its Customer Care department, but with Genesys technology Stream will be able to make customer service the responsibility of everyone in the firm. In this way, Genesys allows Stream to attain that next level of customer service it always had its corporate eye on. This is a paradigm shift in the way that Stream will do business, said Martin. Customer service was something that the Call Center previously focused on. Now, all units within the Stream organization, be it Customer Care or any other department, will eventually be linked so that Stream can leverage its full range of capabilities in order to optimize The Customer Experience. Stream will begin to implement the Roadmap this summer when the firm installs Genesys Voice Platform, Virtual Hold Technology, and computer-telephony integration to offer customers speech-enabled self-service and assisted service. These applications, purchased before the Roadmap was developed, are now part of an overall strategy and not an isolated fix. One major strategy is to align Customer Care with what customers want. Toward that end, Stream has adopted

7 Success Story Utilities Stream Energy Page 7 of 8 Genesys Product Suite Genesys provides an open system platform designed to integrate with more hardware and software applications than any other leading contact center software company. Genesys Business Consulting s recommendation to undertake regular customer satisfaction surveys. The brief surveys of five to seven questions will likely be completed within the Genesys Voice Platform application via touch-tone telephone commands and will help Stream shape its contact center policies regarding selfservice, hold times, agent help, usage, Web contacts, and other issues. Each customer s survey results will be attached to her history in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application so that every customer can receive the service that addresses her specific needs. This effort will be complemented by another Genesys Business Consulting recommendation to compile an agent competency framework that will segment agents according to skills. Our recommendations combine to form a customer service ecosystem, said Quaglietta. For example, Stream will be able to identify customers who may be considering moving to another electricity provider and, using skill-based routing, direct those customers to a loyalty group of agents for extra care. In such a case, technology and customer satisfaction programs combine to further the strategy of customer service and retention. The Genesys Customer Interaction Management Platform will form the basis of all the technology components that Stream will add as it goes forward. The modular nature of the Platform allows every additional Stream investment in Genesys software to integrate with the existing infrastructure and increase its value by adding new features. This modular approach can also facilitate Stream s ability to deliver the power of Genesys to the Associate Support contact center, which supports Ignite Associates. One of the most interesting Genesys proposals suggested an innovative way for Stream to maximize its investment in customer care technology. As Stream grows, it might at times find that call volumes at its Customer Care or Associate Support contact center overwhelms the individual capacity of either. At such times, the capacities of both centers could be shared to create an Overflow Center that guarantees the delivery of excellent service. Stream has essentially locked in a three year strategy for the contact center, and that is a big deal for an emerging growth firm, said Martin. Genesys will help us enter new markets by making sure that our contact center is always one step ahead of our business plans.

8 Success Story Utilities Stream Energy Page 8 of 8 Genesys is the world s #1 contact center software company 4 of the 15 world s largest energy companies use Genesys 1 of the 2 world s largest oil and gas equipment companies use Genesys 3 of the 5 largest U.S. gas and electric companies use Genesys Genesys Overview Genesys, an Alcatel-Lucent company, is 100 percent focused on software for contact centers. Leading companies in the Global 2000 and Fortune 1000 use Genesys to deliver interactions that drive better business. With 4,000 customers in 80 countries, Genesys directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day. Genesys allows enterprises to achieve key business objectives by tying together customer interactions in both traditional telephony and IP environments. Sophisticated routing and reporting across voice, , documents and Web interactions, coupled with integrated self service, ensure customers are connected to the right resource - the first time. Genesys Contact Information Americas Corporate Headquarters Genesys 2001 Junipero Serra Blvd. Daly City, CA United States Genesys ( ) Europe, Middle East, Africa EMEA Headquarters Genesys House Mulberry Business Park Fishponds Road Wokingham, Berkshire RG41 2GY England Asia Pacific APAC Headquarters Genesys Laboratories Australasia Pty Ltd Level 17, 124 Walker Street North Sydney, NSW 2060 Australia Additional Information To learn more about Genesys solutions, please visit v.1-04/07-u.s.