Restoring power

Editor's note: Mark Camack is president and Katherine Johnson is research director at The Corps Group, a St. Louis-based consulting firm serving the health care, utility and telecommunications industries. The authors were involved at the vendor level in the marketing research for this project. Camack moderated the interactive voice response system focus groups. Johnson assisted in the analysis and interpretation of the results for both the qualitative and quantitative portions of the research study.

It's an electric utility's worst nightmare: Late at night, with only six customer representatives on duty, 10,000 customers lose their electric power.

This can mean big trouble for an electric utility, because the only time most customers call is during a power outage. The dilemma for the utility company is how to handle the thousands of incoming calls it normally receives when the utility has only a handful of customer service representatives available.
Like many other large utilities, Detroit Edison - which serves 1.9 million customers - faced this problem daily. Customers didn't like waiting to report power problems, and Detroit Edison didn't like making them wait on hold - assuming the customer ever got through the constant busy signal.

But what was the solution? Detroit Edison selected the most natural technological answer, an automated, interactive trouble reporting system. In these systems, customers press touch-tone buttons to report the outage, or, in advanced versions of these systems, speak their answers into a voice recognition system.
The calls are then collected, routed and addressed in a timely fashion. Most important, the calls are answered, because such systems can handle up to 40,000 calls per hour. No more busy signals.

Companies install these interactive voice response units (VRUs) to improve customer satisfaction. Detroit Edison's VRU played a key role in the company's larger overall plan to organize its Customer Communications Center - a consolidation of six telephone centers into one toll-free calling center - and to increase customer accessibility.

In 1991, the utility purchased a state-of-the-art voice response system. The system, from Digital Equipment Corp., is the largest in the country at an electric utility. It can handle up to 42,000 calls per hour and can meet a variety of customer needs, including billing arrangements and service calls. Detroit Edison's VRU is also one of the few systems currently installed with voice recognition capabilities for rotary telephone customers.

Asked customers

But just how did Detroit Edison's management and engineers make the technological leap from busy signals to a VRU? It was simple - they asked their customers.


In 1990, Detroit Edison embarked on a comprehensive market research study to find out what its customers thought of it. Although this study probed hundreds of issues and produced several volumes of data, one central theme emerged: Residential customers placed a high value on accessibility.

Define and test issues

The residential phase of this research study began with qualitative research consisting of 30 focus groups. William Newbold, supervisor of marketing research for Detroit Edison, says focus groups were selected in this initial period because they can be a good way to define and test issues. "Focus groups can give something to show to management that is immediate," he says.

This initial phase formed the basis for the subsequent development of Detroit Edison's voice response unit. Detroit Edison held these groups throughout its service area and talked with a diverse customer base. The focus groups helped the utility generate a hypothesis: Customers were less angry about the loss of power than about lack of accessibility.

As the groups progressed, it became clear that customers were speaking with one voice: They wanted to be able to reach Detroit Edison when they had a problem.

Usually customers had to call dozens of times, then wait on hold, sometimes for 30 minutes or more, before they reached a customer service representative. When they finally did get through, the customer representative may not have had the outage information the customer really needed.

This scenario so frustrated customers that many eventually gave up and never bothered calling Detroit Edison during outages. But just because they didn't call didn't mean they didn't care. Subsequent quantitative marketing research corroborated this hypothesis, measuring the magnitude of customer discontent from Detroit Edison's inaccessibility during outages. This was a large and growing problem, contributing to affected customers' overall poor perceptions of Detroit Edison as an electric service provider.

Severe consequences

Both the qualitative and quantitative research findings strongly indicated that Detroit Edison should develop a solution to improve customer attitudes, or face severe consequences down the road. The quantitative research tested a potential solution to this inaccessibility problem. Customers overwhelmingly supported an automated telephone solution.

In the past, customer accessibility was a daily problem, not just during outages. Approximately 60 percent of customers who called got busy signals. Since the introduction of the VRU in March 1992, Detroit Edison reports that busy signals have been virtually eliminated.

But even the state-of-the-art system didn't address the critical issues of the system's user friendliness. In fact, many interactive voice response systems have been cumbersome, even downright frustrating, to use. The busy signal is often replaced by a new customer problem: how to deal with the automated system.

To be truly effective, VRU systems must meet the needs of utility customers. Actually implementing these VRUs involved additional customer input from focus groups and one-on-one human factors testing.

"The focus groups were instrumental in the customer testing and reviewing the system. The groups also showed us ways to improve it," says Robert Sitkauskas, director of communications technology for Detroit Edison's VRU system.

Market researcher Newbold adds, "The focus groups allowed us to immediately fix [general problems]."

Scripts tested

These focus groups met several research objectives. Before the system launch, Detroit Edison used focus groups to test the scripts that the customers would hear when they called into the system. Considering all the sophisticated hardware and software that accompanies an enormous interactive voice unit, the script would appear to be the easiest part. Actually, this was one of the most difficult obstacles Detroit Edison faced.

First, the script had to be user friendly for both rotary and touch-tone telephone users. It had to be short enough to be easily understood while providing enough information for customers to navigate easily through it. The script had to accommodate several different types of calls: outage reports, callbacks for outages and reporting other electrical equipment problems such as downed wires or low voltage. In addition, the script had to tell callers what to do if they wanted to talk to an actual customer representative to handle other matters like billing and service inquiries.

This script had to be readily understandable to various customer groups, from high-tech callers familiar with other voice response systems to those who might be new to the technology. Vocabulary and diction had to be clearly understood by customers of all ages.

Soliciting customer feedback broke through some old stereotypes. Detroit Edison's focus groups showed that some senior citizens may be more technologically savvy than expected. The process also reinforced the idea that once customers understood the system, most liked it and actually preferred it to waiting for a customer service representative.

"The focus groups allowed us to test different applications - the rotary and touch-tone-and test different skill levels, the technology-averse and the high-tech customers," Sitkauskas says. "We used focus groups three times with three different scenarios. We tested scripting every time."

The focus groups also had respondents individually conduct various scenarios into a system prototype. Then the group reconvened to discuss their experiences. This protocol eventually led to one-on-one human factors research with the system vendor.

The groups also led to some important changes in the system's scripts, especially for emergency calls. "We thought that it was easy to define an 'emergency'," Sitkauskas says, but the focus groups caused the utility to rethink that idea. "We found we didn't need to keep all of the options we had thought necessary," Sitkauskas adds.

Several essential elements were identified in the script development phase. They included:

- a short introduction and concise options at each decision point;

- ensuring that rotary customers know they must speak their answers; and

- customer-focused wording and phrasing, such as "downed wire" rather than utilityspeak "wiredown."

As customers fine-tuned the scripts to eliminate jargon, Detroit Edison gained valuable "real world" information with each focus group.

"The impact was that the customers took the words out of our mouths and helped us write and read the script the way they wanted to hear it," says Sitkauskas. "We were careful to do more than one group - the nine groups let us see the whole picture. We listened to the responses and made the script changes primarily based on what the customer was telling us."

Customers also evaluated the pacing and timing of the script. Respondents evaluated a series of phrases generated by different voices and commented on when to pause throughout the script. These changes were incorporated into the final version of the script that was developed for the voice response system.
The respondents also evaluated several voices that instructed the callers. They listened to male and female voices and chose the one they thought sounded the most professional and spoke most clearly.

Promotional ideas also tested

Besides testing the script, Detroit Edison used focus groups as an opportunity to test various promotional ideas. Unless the system is promoted effectively to the customers, callers might not understand it and might even resent its introduction.

Focus group respondents evaluated various promotional messages associated with this VRU. The respondents fine-tuned the types of messages that would have to be incorporated into any promotional activities involved in introducing a voice response system. The messages had to include a telephone number and an explanation of the advantages of an automated system over a customer representative.
After several promotional concepts were tested, a central theme emerged: The customers wanted it short and sweet. Their recommendations included:

- Glow-in-the-dark stickers with the VRU number to attach to the telephone;

- a printed message on the outside of the envelope introducing the VRU system, instead of just inserting promotional material inside the bill; and

- a "map" showing how to use the VRU system.

While not every idea was practical, these experiences further reinforced the value of the customer input Detroit Edison received when developing its VRU. Talking to the customers clearly saved both time and money. For example, using input from these focus groups, Detroit Edison designed bill inserts to educate its customers about the VRU.

Next: handle billing, payment

Detroit Edison's next step is to design the system to handle routine billing and payment matters. Funneling these types of calls through an interactive system allows customer service representatives to spend their time dealing with more complex customer service issues.

Detroit Edison wanted to identify issues associated with broadening the VRU beyond outage reports, so the utility hosted a set of focus groups to compare different billing and payment scenarios. Customers evaluated the scripts and concepts associated with making late payments, partial payments and extended payments on their overdue bills.

They evaluated several payment options in different formats for keying the information into the system. Scenarios were also developed to meet the needs of special types of customer groups, such as those with poor credit histories or senior citizens.

These scripts, which were more complicated than the initial VRU scripts, required respondents to key in the dates, including month and day of their next payment, and payment amounts. The respondents spent a lot of time discussing the best method for inputting this information, how much information was really required and how many days customers should have before their payments are made (30 or 60 days). Once again, customers identified the most efficient and effective methods for automating a complex task, such as bill payment, over the telephone lines. While these system enhancements are still in the wings, much of the work has identified what is and what is not practical to incorporate into the system.

Customers love the VRU

But what has been the reaction to all of these changes and proposed changes at Detroit Edison? The customers love the idea. Within just the first few months of operation, successful customer usage has exceeded expectations.

During a 1992 summer storm, Detroit Edison's VRU handled more than 175,000 calls in three days. For the first time the utility was able to handle all the incoming calls in a timely manner. Most important, the VRU system has become an effective tool in reporting outages for touch-tone and rotary customers.
And what about the customer representatives? After all, with an automated system, who needs live employees? Well, Detroit Edison still does - the utility hired 40 percent more customer service employees after the voice response system's introduction.

In fact, Detroit Edison's customer representatives report that their workload has actually increased, but with the right kind of calls. Rather than answering the same questions all day long and speaking to customers who are fed up waiting 10 minutes or more, the representatives now speak to more customers, faster, and actually accomplish more each day.

"Detroit Edison received more calls in ten months in 1992 than we received in all of 1991. We are a full two months ahead in the calls. That's a big change," Sitkauskas says. More important, Detroit Edison has been able to handle this increased call volume with no drop in customer satisfaction.

More than a million calls

To date, Detroit Edison's VRU system has received and processed more than a million customer calls. Now the utility is able to process 30 percent more calls on an average business day. On an average Monday, the busiest day for customer calling, Detroit Edison's system logs about 19,000 calls.

The average time spent calling also has dropped substantially. Before the VRU, customers waited anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour to report an outage. Now novice callers can report an outage in less than two and a half minutes. "Experts" who have called in previously can update their reports in as little as 90 seconds.

And most important, customers are pleased with the new systems. They were enthusiastic supporters of Detroit Edison's efforts to develop this system. Even a few minor glitches in the script-testing phase did not lessen their support.

"I thought it was very innovative," said one respondent in a recent focus group. Rotary customers were especially supportive of this new system. Another one said, "I was pleased that you could respond with a rotary phone." Another rotary telephone user added, "I liked it. It saved the time of having to wait. With other automated services, you have to wait if you have rotary telephones for an operator to come on the line."

According to a recent report, 76 percent of the respondents who called into this system were satisfied with the VRU. Most telling of all, the overwhelming majority of these respondents (77 percent) feel that the VRU system has improved Detroit Edison's customer service.

Additional refinements

But the work is never really done for a voice system like this. Detroit Edison's VRU is being further redefined to accommodate the needs of residential and small business customers. Plans are also in the works for additional system refinements. Besides automating billing and payment arrangements, Detroit Edison wants to use the VRU for outbound calling. Sitkauskas envisions that soon the VRU will be able to call customers back to verify their power has been restored, call customers to inform them of planned outages and call for credit and collection purposes.

The focus groups also yielded another unexpected bonus - customer goodwill. "Doing focus groups helped our VRU to be positively received among customers," says Sitkauskas.

That may be the ultimate benefit of focus groups. While qualitative research cannot be definitive, it can serve as a powerful demonstration of a company's willingness to listen to its customers. When a client is ready to listen, as Detroit Edison has, everybody wins.