CREDIT AND COLLECTIONS: IMPROVING FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE FOR UTILITIES

Transcription

1 13 TH ANNUAL CREDIT AND COLLECTIONS: IMPROVING FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE FOR UTILITIES Millenium Knickerbocker CONFERENCE Host Utility Sponsors is authorized by IACET to offer 1.0 CEUs for the conference. 1

2 OVERVIEW Utilities face increasing pressure from stakeholders and communities to improve their financial performance and profitability by minimizing write-offs for uncollectible accounts. When it comes to collecting overdue consumer debt, utilities are at a peculiar disadvantage. Utilities can t recover electricity that has already been consumed and their ability to compel payment through sanctions like termination of service is often constrained by consumer protection regulations. One of the key objectives for utilities is to provide high reliability at affordable prices with the goal of having very satisfied customers. Improving efficiency in the collections area is one way to reduce their cost of doing business, benefits that will ultimately be passed on to their customers through lower prices. Unfortunately, for many utilities, wide swings in performance dips and subsequent recoveries or negative benchmarking comparisons to industry peers elevate issues associated with collections to the C-suite internally and sometimes even to earnings press releases. Climate change, energy usage patterns and regulation affect company billing and collections performance, but variations within a state or region demonstrate that operational strategy, policies, process execution and management effectiveness are also key drivers. s 13th Annual Credit & Collections conference will provide an overview of utility credit and collections performance and highlight the drivers and challenges of successful collections strategies. Experts from investor owned utilities (IOUs), municipalities and co-ops will share some of the strategies and best practices that have allowed them to significantly improve collections performance. They will also detail how they have organized to manage credit risk and explore customer-focused approaches across residential, commercial, and industrial accounts. Special attention will be paid to the analysis of collection activities and suggestions for the most efficient collection procedures and department organization. WHO SHOULD ATTEND Individuals working in the following areas will benefit from attending this event: Credit and collections Call center operations Customer service and support Billing Financial analysis Treasury/controller The Credit & Collections conference was informative, interactive and fun. I learned about effective processes that other utilities use and validated some processes used by my company. I found the experience rewarding. LEARNING OUTCOMES Supervisor, Pepco Holdings Demonstrate how big data has made a huge difference on performance Explain economic impacts to utility delinquency and write-offs and their influencing factors Discuss the impact of technology on improving customer collections and relations Discuss how meter-to-cash has improved revenues dramatically and cut costs Demonstrate ways to optimize internal collection efforts to manage accounts receivable, minimize write-offs, and reduce allowance for doubtful accounts Explain smart meter opt out procedures to help calm external relations concerns Discuss how to improve collection results in a short period of time Identify the types of contact channels and payment method preferences for consumers Discuss the different methods of credit screening and internal credit scoring necessary to achieve account management benchmarks Critique solutions that enhance the management, recovery and production of A/R portfolios 2

3 AGENDA Thursday, June 25, :45 8:15 a.m. Registration and Continental Breakfast 8:15 8:25 a.m. Welcome Announcements always strives to bring the best in class in the industry to share their knowledge and successes. Their conferences are always right on target. Director, Revenue Protection & Loss, Union Power Cooperative 8:25 8:45 a.m. Welcome/Keynote Address from ComEd On behalf of ComEd a unit of Exelon Corporation, one of the nation s largest electric and gas utility holding companies and the local utility for the city of Chicago Chuck Walls (Vice President of Customer Revenue Assurance) will welcome his power industry colleagues. Mr. Walls will give a high level overview of credit and collections best practices across the different Exelon operating companies, and address issues related to integration. - Charles Walls, VP Customer Revenue Assurance, Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) 1. UTILITY CASE STUDIES: HOW TECHNOLOGY CONTINUES TO IMPROVE COLLECTIONS 8:45 9:30 a.m. Making Big Data Work for You This session will reflect on a problem that has plagued the utility industry for more than a century and describes a solution that has made a huge difference on Citizens Energy Group s write off results. Not until the technology developed in the past decade could IT staff find 330,000,000 utility consumer records in one location. This session will provide an interesting insight into how this Big Data technique worked for Citizens Energy Group, contrast the before and after implementation results, and spell out the steps Citizens Energy Group took to implement the Big Data solution. The presentation will examine the process used at Citizens Energy Group to: Define the root cause of the write-off problem Quantify the problem and the impact on write-off Implement a Big Data solution Detail the implementation path and required resources Assess post implementation write-off results - Leon D. Broughton, Director of Billing and Revenue Assurance, Citizens Energy Group 9:30 10:15 a.m. System Conversions to Improve Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Billing 10:15 10:45 a.m. Networking Break This session will describe one of the largest transformational projects completed in the history of Pepco Holdings, Inc. and its utilities serving customers in four separate regulatory jurisdictions. SolutionOne is a project that successfully replaced two legacy customer information systems (CIS) with a new state-of-theart customer relationship management (CRM) and billing system, while consolidating multiple customer care activities. It s been called the most complex system implementation ever undertaken in the utility industry. The presentation will include lessons learned from: Accommodating four regulatory jurisdictions, multiple companies, AMI and register read meters, dynamic pricing programs, deregulation, net energy metering programs and more all in one system Developing Analyze, Design, Build, Test, Deploy and Stabilization phases Establishing guiding principles to streamline the implementation process Go-live experience Conducting cost benefit and realization of smart grid customer benefits Improving customer service and billing for credit and collections - Hallie Reese, Vice President of Customer Care, Pepco Holdings, Inc. 3

4 AGENDA Thursday, June 25, 2015 (Continued) 10:45 11:30 a.m. Credit Assessment for New and Returning Customers This segment will examine how Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) maintains fair customer policies while meeting the account management needs of the utility. The discussion will address the different methods of credit screening and internal credit scoring, as well as the benefits and issues associated with charging deposits. It will also consider how technical advancements at utilities like Online Utility Exchange are affecting advancements in credit policies. And it will look at these credit and collection details: Charging Deposits o Does this benefit the utility? What are the savings or costs? What are the ramifications for the customer? Credit Screening Options o What are the available options? o How do any of these methods benefit the utility and affect the customer? Customer Satisfaction o What are the overall positives and negatives for the utility and for the customer? o How does the utility keep up with the changing technical advancements? - Angie Gilliam, Supervisor Collections & Cashier Group, Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) 11:30 a.m. 12:15 p.m. Driving Collections and Automated Metering in a Municipally Owned Utility This session will describe how external relations factors have plagued the CPS s collections processes, and how the city-owned utility was able to overcome and plan for those factors in the past year. The organization has improved its collections by more than $160 million year after year, while focusing greater attention on the customer and providing for more community engagement and residential assistance programs. This session will cover the following topics: The implications of what being the largest U.S. municipally-owned utility means Explain certain external relations factors (City owned and council districts pressures, media relations concerns) that distinguish muni from IOU utilities Examine the CPS collection Dunning timeline The CPS collections strategy that ensured collections of over $160 million more each year The CPS Energy 4-year roll out plan of automated metering infrastructure (Smart Meter - AMI) The smart meter opt out procedure due to external relations concerns/pressures - Adrienne S. Alcazar, Director, Field & Payment Services, Customer Accounts & Operations, CPS Energy 12:15 1:15 p.m. Group Luncheon 1:15 2:00 p.m. Moving at Warp Speed to Improve Collections This session will describe the evolution at the City of Fountain over the past 18 months where the company has been and where it is now with regard to lessons learned from improving collections and the changes the utility has implemented. The blueprint will address: ACH shortening the time to get the money Bad debt ratios improving ratios This conference is well Commercial and residential worth the money! Great Smart meters remote connects/disconnects information 14 initiatives Webshare Credit/Collections, East Central Energy - Denise Howell, Customer Service Manager, City of Fountain Utilities REGISTER 4601 DTC TODAY! Blvd., Suite CALL OR VISIT 4

5 AGENDA Thursday, June 25, 2015 (Continued) 2:00 2:45 p.m. Maximizing Revenue Returns with Minimal Disconnects 2:45 3:15 p.m. Networking Break The Las Vegas Valley Water District has made a dramatic shift in its approach to arrears debt. The organization recognized that the data contained within smart metering systems and the insight that the CRM system provided into customer behavior were the key to moving away from delinquent shut offs. Consequently, advancing initiatives around liens and proactive write-off control was moved from an annual budgetary action to a daily business process that is engaged at the front lines. This segment will discuss how adopting a meter-to-cash philosophy has driven several changes allowing the utility to collect more revenue and scarcely roll trucks to disconnect service. - Penny Tootle, Customer Care Manager, Las Vegas Valley Water District 3:15 4:15 p.m. Improve your Agency Management Strategy for Optimal Collection Recovery Rates Learn how DebtNext and Experian partnered to improve utilities agency management strategies through the use of agency management software, agency scorecards, collection attributes and recovery scores. Through their collaboration and optimization efforts, PECO improved their recovery rates, maximized lowcost collections processes and allowed for a risk-based agency management model. - Maria D. Conway, Performance Assessment Senior Analyst, PECO Energy - Paul Goske, President, DebtNext Software, LLC - Donna Cassidy, Strategic Industry Consultant Energy, Experian 4:15 5:00 p.m. Vision of the Future: Vendor Panel Discussion 5:00 6:00 p.m. Networking Reception In this session, a panel of industry vendors will discuss what they see as the critical components and challenges for utilities based on the valuable experience and information obtained through their customers feedback. This interactive panel will respond to inquiries from the moderator and audience on how technology, agency management and more will continue to improve credit and collections. Moderator: Steve Kusic, CEO, National Recovery Agency Panelists: - Jeff Tuccy, Business Development Manager, Virtuoso Sourcing - Thom Majka, Director of Business Development, DebtNext - Tom Hanson, Strategic Industry Consultant, Experian - Bob Myers, Executive Vice President, Global Connect 5

6 AGENDA Friday, June 26, :00 8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast 2. CASE STUDIES: CFPB, JOURNEY MAPPING, OUT-SOURCING AND COMMERCIAL 8:30 9:15 a.m. A First-Party Collections : Improving Collection Results and Managing CFPB Risk With changes to the regulatory environment surrounding the collection of debt, some Utilities are realizing additional success by hiring a vendor to provide First-Party collection services. Contracting with a company for First-Party services can help manage risks associated with new enforcements by the CFPB and compliment the Third-Party Collection services you already use. This presentation will illustrate the results one company achieved through this type of arrangement. - Rob Ayres, Senior Manager, A/P, Treasury, Credit & Collections, Nicor Gas (invited) - Jeff Tuccy, Business Development Manager, Virtuoso Sourcing 9:15 10:00 a.m. Journey Mapping for Credit & Collections Customers can be very emotional when dealing with credit and collections issues, right? In this session, E Source will share ebusiness trends, contact channel and payment method preferences. These insights, along with new Journey Mapping tools and techniques to support customers through their emotional credit and collections journey, can help the business deliver an outcome that supports a positive customer experience while delivering on revenue targets. - Maureen Russolo, Vice President, E Source 10:00 10:30 a.m. Networking Break 10:30 11:15 a.m. Out-Sourcing Credit and Collections: Costs vs. Benefits Analysis for We Energies Now more than ever, utilities are focused on reducing costs and improving performance. In an effort to continuously increase efficiency, We Energies recently out-sourced its collection and litigation processes to a third party. This segment will discuss how the utility weighed the pros and cons to reach its decision to out-source, what its results have been to date, and how it achieved effective service level agreements to help manage credit risk within an out-sourced environment. - Sue Bell, Business Process Analyst Credit & Collections, We Energies 11:15 a.m. 12:00 p.m. Creative Methods to Manage Risk More Efficiently 12:00 p.m. Conference Adjourns This is a case study of Portland General Electric s Commercial Credit Program business practices and efficiency improvements. This presentation will look at assessing creditworthiness via risk-based reviews, promoting security up-front, and partnering with the customer marketing team on credit-challenged customers. The combined efforts are creative methods to minimize write-offs and manage risk more efficiently. - Tyesha Woods, Commercial Credit Program Manager, Portland General Electric 6

7 INSTRUCTIONAL METHODS This program will include case studies, panel discussions and PowerPoint presentations. REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF PROGRAM Participants must sign in/out each day, be in attendance for the entirety of the conference, and complete a conference exam to be eligible for continuing education credit. IACET CREDITS has been accredited as an Authorized Provider by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET). In obtaining this accreditation, has demonstrated that it complies with the ANSI/IACET Standard which is recognized internationally as a standard of good practice. As a result of their Authorized Provider status, is authorized to offer IACET CEUs for its programs that qualify under the ANSI/IACET Standard. is authorized by IACET to offer 1.0 CEUs for the conference. EVENT LOCATION Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel Chicago 163 East Walton Place NOTE: The host hotel is sold out. Below is a list of nearby hotels. Raffaello Hotel 201 E. Delaware Pl This hotel is.1 miles from the Host Hotel The Tremont Chicago Hotel at Magnificent Mile 100 E. Chestnut St, Chicago, IL (312) This hotel is.2 miles from the Host Hotel Courtyard by Marriott Chicago Magnificent Mile 165 East Ontario St This hotel is.4 miles from the Host Hotel Fairfield Inn & Suites Chicago Downtown / Magnificent Mile 216 East Ontario St (312) This hotel is.4 miles from the Host Hotel PROCEEDINGS A copy of the conference proceedings will be distributed to attendees at the event. If you are unable to attend or would like to purchase additional copies, a downloadable link will available two weeks after the conference is complete. The cost per download is US $295. The link includes visual presentations only. Upon receipt of order and payment, the link will be sent to you via . NOTE: All presentation sales are final and are nonrefundable. REGISTER 3, SEND 4TH FREE Any organization wishing to send multiple attendees to these conferences may send 1 FREE for every 3 delegates registered. Please note that all registrations must be made at the same time to qualify. SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES Do you want to drive new business through this event s powerful audience? Becoming a sponsor or exhibitor is an excellent opportunity to raise your profile before a manageably sized group of executives who make the key purchasing decisions for their businesses. There is a wide range of sponsorship opportunities available that can be customized to fit your budget and marketing objectives, including: Platinum, gold, or VIP sponsor Workshop sponsor Reception host Lanyard sponsor Networking break host Luncheon host Tabletop exhibit Breakfast host Custom sponsorship opportunities are also available. Please contact Grant Neptune at or [email protected] for more information. REGISTER 4601 DTC TODAY! Blvd., Suite CALL OR VISIT 7

8 REGISTRATION INFORMATION EVENT LOCATION Mail Directly To: Electric Utility Consultants, Inc. () 4601 DTC Blvd., Ste. 800 OR, scan and to: PLEASE REGISTER THE FOLLOWING 13 TH ANNUAL CREDIT AND COLLECTIONS CONFERENCE: IMPROVING FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE FOR UTILITIES JUNE 25-26, 2015 : US $1395 EARLY BIRD ON OR BEFORE JUNE 12, 2015: US $1195 I'M SORRY I CANNOT ATTEND, BUT PLEASE SEND ME A LINK TO THE CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS FOR US $295. How did you hear about this event? (direct , colleague, speaker(s), etc.) Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel Chicago 163 East Walton Place ENERG ZE WEEKLY s Energize Weekly newsletter compiles and reports on the latest news and trends in the energy industry. Newsletter recipients also receive a different, complimentary conference presentation every week on a relevant industry topic. The presentations are selected from a massive library of more than 1,000 current presentations that has gathered during its 28 years organizing conferences. Sign me up for Energize Weekly. Print Name Job Title Company What name do you prefer on your name badge? Address City State/Province Zip/Postal Code Country Telephone List any dietary or accessibility needs here CREDIT CARD Name on Card Account Number Billing Address Billing City Billing State Billing Zip Code/Postal Code Exp. Date Security Code (last 3 digits on the back of Visa and MC or 4 digits on front of AmEx) OR Enclosed is a check for $ to cover registrations. All cancellations received on or before May 24, 2015, will be subject to a US $195 processing fee. Written cancellations received after this date will create a credit of the tuition (less processing fee) good toward any other event or publication. This credit will be good for six months. In case of event cancellation, s liability is limited to refund of the event registration fee only. For more information regarding administrative policies, such as complaints and refunds, please contact our offices at reserves the right to alter this program without prior notice. 8