It was the annual Utility CS (Customer Service) and Smart Grid conference last week. US based software vendors, utilities and industry consultants gathered in Florida to share billing and smart meter deployment experiences, promote new products and talk about the biggest game changers in utility customer service.

Among the smart grid related papers presented was one on the PowerCents program in DC, which we’ve blogged about before. Unsurprisingly, most, if not all of the smart grid deployment stories had a common theme - customer engagement. Generally this was achieved through better customer education, better CSR training and better management of offers (i.e. taking time to match products and services to the customer’s specific needs and lifestyles). On customer education, Southern California Edison had some good examples of how to reach out to customers in different ways, one of which was the creation of upbeat education video, available on line but also screened in cinemas in suburbs where smart grids were being deployed (www.youtube.com/user/SCE).

Credit control and collections is an ongoing issue for many US based utilities and prepaid supply is once again in the spotlight. Projects that leverage smart meters for their prepaid programs are helping to turn around the negative press traditionally associated with this payment model.  Salt River Project’s M-Power is the largest electricity prepayment program in the United States. Although not specifically featured at this year’s CS conference, M-power has become a test case in moving prepaid metering beyond the typical groups of low-income households or those facing termination. With 100,000 of its customers now on prepaid accounts, the program continues to achieve high level of customer satisfaction and has an overall consumption reduction of approximately 12%. However, the relative influence of the change in metering data provision versus the change in payment terms has yet to be determined. It could be an interesting variable to consider for future smart grid pilots.

CIS or billing system replacement stories are always a feature of CS week. Those secrets to success aren’t much of a secret anymore but are still worth repeating.  Good change management, minimisation of scope creep and choosing the right technology partner are as relevant now as they were 10 years ago. But there are also some changes on the ‘software deployment’ horizon. While not yet red hot, the benefits of moving billing and CS software to the cloud are definitely warming up as hosting services and cloud computing move onto the radar of traditionally risk averse US utilities.

Also climbing the ‘hotness’ scale was a relatively new topic - “Getting ready for Electric Vehicles’. Southern California Edison have once again grasped the importance of early customer engagement, adapting their website and creating another youtube video to outline their plans, and to encourage prospective customers of electric cars to sign up to ‘ help us help you.”

Which brings us to the busiest sessions of CS week 2011 - Utilities and Social Media. 

But that deserves a blog all to itself.