The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced February 8, 2012 revisions to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) rules.
Background
Under the new FCC rules, telemarketers are required to obtain written consent, which can be in the form of an online approval, before placing autodialed or prerecorded calls to a consumer. Telemarketers also must provide an automated opt-out mechanism during each call so that consumers can immediately tell the telemarketer to stop calling. The FCC's new rules also apply to text messages.
Summary of the Amendments to the TCPA Rules
- A requirement for prior express written consent for all autodialed or prerecorded telemarketing calls to emergency lines, health care facilities and cell phones.
- A requirement for prior express written consent for prerecorded telemarketing calls to residential lines.
- The elimination of the established business relationship exemption for prerecorded telemarketing calls to residential lines.
- The inclusion of an interactive opt-out mechanism on prerecorded messages calls and in the abandoned call message. A revision to the abandoned call calculation to a pre-campaign approach; and,
- Exemptions for "health care" messages and calls make by or on behalf of a tax-exempt nonprofit organization.
Implications for Utilities
The impact to utility automated outbound communications should be minimal but require careful attention, scrutiny, and record-keeping. As you think about some of the general messages you send to your customers - urging customers to migrate to e-billing or participate in new programs or services - it remains very important to address the lawfulness within the communications regulatory landscape.
Top 5 Things to Consider
Are you thinking about establishing a permission-based relationship with your customers? If so, we can immediately help you navigate this communication minefield. Here are five key isses to consider:
- Strategy - How do you plan to approach gaining customer support?
- Data Capture & Storage - How can you capture, store and manage who has, or has not given consent?
- Preference Management - How can you track and maintain record that assure your communications incorporate consent and customer preference data?
- Speed to Market - Can you do this in-house, and if so, how long would it take to build and implement?
- Ongoing Regulatory Compliance - How can you stay on top of the regulatory landscape? Rules will continue to evolve as new communication channels are expolited. (i.e. Twitter & Facebook).
At TFCC, we take the role of trusted partner very seriously. One of the values we bring to the table is our close attention to federal regulations dealing with utility customer communications. West, TFCC's parent company, has been following this rule-making from the beginning, filed comments on it in February and May 2010, and met with the FCC to express our concerns with the proposal.
Important Links
West FCC Ruling Webinar
West Client Memo
Preference Management Blog Post
Preference Management helps utilities connect with their customers the way they want, when and how they choose.
The Challenge
Today's utilities demand more. More service, more value and immediate responsiveness. This push for customer empowerment has driven the need for a system of collecting and managing utility customer communication experience. In discussing the challenge of collecting customer preferences and communicating via those preferences, Chartwell reports in a recent blog post that:
“Innovative technologies have changed the way businesses connect and respond to customers. From smartphone applications to social media, the utility industry should embrace change rather than fight it. This leads to the challenge of collecting customer preferences and communicating via those preferences.”
Chartwell, Feb, 2012
What It Is
Preference Management is a hosted technology that captures and manages customer communication preferences. Using this data, utilities can deliver highly-relevant outbound messages over multiple channels - voice, text, fax and email - based on these predefined customer preferences.
The End Result
Your utility can deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time, via the right channel.
Business Benefits of Preference Management
Preference management delivers value by putting utility customers in control; thus improving the customer experience, and enhancing customer satisfaction. When customers are in control, they are more receptive to utility messages and have a higher likelihood of responding to them or taking the desired action. Preference Management:
- Enhances customer satisfaction.
- Offers freedom of choice for customers, while delivering a lower cost channel for the utility.
- Saves money by not having to purchase data storage space or change your existing systems.
- Delivers faster implementation with little drain on IT resources.
- Meets regulatory compliance requirements.
- Provides relevant and timely information.
- Generates a measurable impact; know who to call when and for what.
- Builds trust with your customers by creating a personal engagement.
During the recent northeast snow storms, many residents were frustrated with the lack of communication between the utility company and their customers. Many residents were left in the dark for days with no time frame for their power to be restored. Other residents had to find out Halloween festivities were canceled through word-of-mouth. Read the full Energy Central article.
When customers lose power, they want to know what is going on, when the power will be 
restored, and be assured their electric company is doing everything they can to get the power restored as soon as possible, which is why proactive outbound communications are so important. Before Hurricane Irene hit, one utility sent out over a million proactive outbound calls to their customers, informing them of the current situation and possible shelters available.
The Energy Central article also mentioned that they had difficulty getting out of state crews because they were dealing with their own mess. The town should let residents know they can help crews by keeping trees trimmed around the electrical lines. Proactive outbound communications isn't just for outage notifications. There are many other ways it can be used.
View our video presentation on how utilities are implementing a proactive outbound communication plan that will increase customer satisfaction and offset inbound calls by providing relevant information to the customer before they call the utility.
View this previous post on best practices for messages script design.
A freak snowstorm hit the northeastern states just in time for Halloween. This rare October storm, aka "Snowtober" dropped anywhere from a trace to 30 inches and left more than three million people without electricity from Maryland to Maine. Hundreds of schools closed and trick-or-treating activities were curtailed due to downed utility lines. It's being said that this storm has had a far greater impact on daily life than Hurricane Irene. View the Energy Central news story on a state-by-state look at effects of Oct. snow storm.
All utility companies across the northeast were hard at work, working around the clock to get power restored to their customers. Crews were being sent from the southern states to assist in the clean up. This is only the beginning of the brutal winter months ahead, so make sure your utility is prepared to communicate with your customers using proactive customer communications so they know what is going on and when their power should be restored, putting them at ease.
Allow effective communication between you and your customer during a power outage. TFCC offers an automated Mobile & Desktop Outage Reporting service where your customers can report an outage or get a status update from a smart phone or desktop computer. The utility gets outage information instantly, and improved customer satisfaction.
Mobile & Desktop Outage Reporting Business Benefits:
- Enhanced customer convenience and satisfaction
- Effective communication even during power outages
- Seamless integration with HVCA and your CIS and OMS systems
- Private branding and ownership of mobile website domain
- Little or no requirement for internal development of IT resources
- 24/7/365 customer support
Watch as Gulf Power talks about how they gained support from management and other stakeholders so they could begin a mobile outage communications initiative.
In the past decade, more utilities have been taking a proactive approach to utility collections and customer notification, utilizing credit report agencies to assess risks and implementing remote disconnection procedures. In interviews conducted by Chartwell recently, utilities are redoubling their efforts to streamline these practices due to the effects of the recession.
More than 50 percent of utilities interviewed stated they are changing their credit and risk mitigation assessments, with 12 of 23 interviewees changing or intensifying customer notification and utility collections processes.
In addition to assessing payment and credit histories of customers, utilities are placing a higher priority on security deposits, with more companies requiring security deposits. This is not new to the industry, but has taken a greater precedence in light of the current recession.
Respondents to the survey reported changes they were making directly because of the current economy, and some of the successful changes they reported include:
- Utilizing automated outbound calling of customers with past due amounts
- Being more willing to work with customers and set up payment arrangements
- Beginning programs to utilize credit reporting agencies to identify risk and verify identity
- Becoming increasingly diligent in collecting and assessing security deposits
- Coordinating outreach for customers who qualify for energy assistance programs
- Reviewing eligibility for security deposit refund and holding deposits if credit ratings warrant
- Implementing prepayment options for commercial customers instead of security deposits
- Creating internal rating systems to move customers through collections more quickly if their rating warrants
One of the more commonly reported changes was utilizing the power of automation to contact past due customers sooner. This change was successful for many respondents to the interview.
TFCC's automated collections solution can provide the leverage your utility needs to increase collections revenues and help customers catch up on their payments. To find out more, view the presentation, Collect More When You Connect More.
We are entering into the last part of our best practices for message script design. We hope you have found this content beneficial so far. Read part 1 and part 2 if you missed them. This will focus on including menu options and general considerations. Make sure you download your copy of the message script tool kit at the end.
Best Practices for Including Menu Options:
- Relay all the information first, then the actions. Otherwise, people may begin pressing keys before listening to all the options.
- Tell people how many choices they will have, and then tell them what those choices are.
- If numbers are included in your message, avoid confusion on the part of the recipient by clearly differentiating the numbers from the action key. For example, use "To report a Level 3 emergency, press 2."
- Limit your menu choices to three or four options.
- Use consistent menu options and vocabulary.
General Considerations:
- Make non-emergency outbound calls between 10am and 7pm.
- If sending messages about an upcoming event, send a follow-up message as a reminder.
- Let people know when an event is over. Send them a call to let them know, e.g. planned outage is over.
- Avoid leaving multiple answering machine messages.
View some proactive outbound communication trends in the utility industry.
We've put together a message script tool kit for your benefit. Make sure to check it out!
We hope you found part one of our best practices for message script design useful. Continuing on, here are more best practices focusing on creating voice recorded messages and text messages.
Best Practices for Creating Voice Recorded Messages:
- Whenever possible, have your message/script in front of you and read from it. Reading a script, whether printed out or on a monitor, reduces mistakes, pauses, hesitation, etc, and greatly increases the likelihood that the message will be recorded correctly the first time.
- Try to have one or two other people go over the script first to be sure it makes sense.
- When speaking phone numbers, street addresses, or website addresses, allow extra length of pause/slower speech. Then, repeat them.
- Don't say the letter "O" if you mean zero.
- Record messages in a quiet area and re-record if you make mistakes or said "um".
- Always listen to the message before sending it out.
Best Practices for Creating Text-to-Speech Messages:
- Use a comma to add a pause.
- Enter phone numbers in the following format: 800-555-5555.
- Spell out all abbreviations such as Drive, Avenue, Street, etc.
- Spell out acronyms.
- Do not include commas when entering number amounts.
- Type the date and/or time in the following formats: mm/dd/yyyy, hh.mm AM/PM
- Enter currency in the follow format: $555.55
- Type website address as w w w dot example dot com.
- Always listen to the message before sending it out.
View some proactive outbound communication trends in the utility industry.
To read more best practices, view part 3 of this series. We've put together a message script tool kit for your benefit. Make sure to check it out!
We've talked a lot about how important it is to communicate with your customers when their power goes out and the best practices on how and what to communicate with them. Let's talk about some best practices for proactive outbound message script design.
There are many different notifications your utility can send out:
Whether you use your notification system to deliver outage notifications, billing messages, or service alerts, sending out a clear, consistent message is important.
Message should include elements such as:
- The originator of the message.
- The date/time the message is being sent.
- The type of message. Identify the message as an outage notification, billing message, or service alert.
- The date and time the event happened or will happen. Tell recipients if action should be taken immediately, soon or near future.
- The message should also include a description of the impacted area.
- Include ways for message recipients to obtain further information. For example, direct the recipients to a website, information line, or tell them additional updates will be sent via this messaging system.
View some proactive outbound communication trends in the utility industry.
To read more best practices, view part 2 and part 3 of this series. We've put together a message script tool kit for your benefit. Make sure to check it out!
As our first (and hopefully last) major storm of the year came through, Hurricane Irene left just as quickly as she came, but left millions without power along the east coast. With the hurricane season about half way through and the brutal winter months ahead, you and your electric company should be prepared to communicate with your customers when the unexpected happens.
Losing your power can be stressful, frustrating and inconvenient. When customers lose power, they want to know what is going on, when the power will be restored, and be assured their electric company is doing everything they can to get the power restored as soon as possible.
4 Best Practices for Proactive Outbound Customer Communications:
- Ask Caller If They Would Like a Callback - Customer satisfaction studies reflect significant improvement when the power company provides a restoration callback to confirm that power has been restored. Asking the customer for permission is a courtesy that can allow the customer to state if they would like a callback regardless of the time of day/night. Additionally, the callback can be used as a tool for the crew to confirm that all power has been restored downstream before rolling the trucks away. As more and more customers rely on their cell phone, TFCC can also help you send text messages instead of phone callbacks.
- Power Restoration Callback - Calling customers once their power is restored is a very positive way to touch the customer and improve satisfaction. It catches any stray customer outages while the crew may be nearby.
- Status Callback with Updated Outage Information - This is a courtesy call that increases customer satisfaction by pushing information to the customer instead of the customer calling back into the call center.
- Flag for Special Needs Customers - This is another opportunity to increase customer satisfaction by offering special needs customers a chance to talk with a rep after reporting their outage or to flag their outage ticket so it can be prioritized based on medical needs.
- Call in Advance - Many utilities take the proactive approach and call their customers in advance of an event. The utility states that they are aware of the pending storm, that outages are anticipate and that they have crews standing by to immediately begin restoration efforts. This message might also include shelter locations, and locations where fresh drinking water can be found to name a few. Proactive outbound communications lets the customers know that the utility is hard at work in anticipation of the storm.
Read about why customer communications are so important.
Check back to learn some tips on message script design and to see some sample utility notification messages. In the meantime, you can view our Proactive Outbound Communications video.
The past few blog posts have been about the background of text messaging and the uses and benefits of it for utilities. Now, let's talk about how to implement a Text Messaging Program.
Steps to Implement a Text Messaging Program
Step 1 - Get a Short Code
TFCC has a short code that is shared across its client base. A utility may elect to use the TFCC shared short code or acquire a short code of its own. TFCC can facilitate with its aggregator the acquisition of a short code or the utility can acquire the short code directly from the CSCA at http://www.usshortcodes.com/csc_obtain_a_csc.html. Short codes can be leased for 3, 6 or 12 month terms.
Step 2 - Program Approval
If the utility elects to acquire a short code, the program that will run on the short code must be filed with, and approved by, all the carriers on which the program will run. Unless a program is carrier-specific, it is generally filed on all available wireless carriers. TFCC will facilitate the process of gaining approval of the program with the wireless carriers, which can take 2 to 3 months. As part of the
approval process, the utility will be required to develop a program web site or page that meets carrier requirements. Or, by using TFCC's short code, the program approval is already completed.
NOTE: If TFCC is hosting an opt-in web site where utility customers can elect to receive text messages, this web site will serve as the program web site.
Step 3 - Get Customers' Cell Phone Numbers and Permission to Text
The utility must obtain permission before sending a customer a text message. Permission may be obtained a number of ways: through a sign-up web page, which can be hosted by TFCC or the utility; in conversation with agents; in the HVCA or other IVR application and in other customer communications (e.g. mailings).
Step 4 - Send Messages
TFCC will utilize its nearly 20 years working in the utility space and its technical and client services staff to work with you to set up your SMS application.
System Architecture
The system is designed to be expandable and capable of seamlessly integrating updates and improvements. The network is geo-dispersed, redundant, secure and equipped with intrusion-detection systems and alarms. TFCC's headquarters and Network Operations Center (NOC) is located in Columbus, OH. TFCC's NOC is staffed 24/7/365 by technical engineers that are proficient in identifying and resolving system and client application issues.
TFCC has fully redundant systems in Columbus, OH supported by an Oracle backbone, SUN Solaris platform. TFCC has a replicated hot site located at an AT&T POP site in Denver, CO. The Denver facility runs "hot" ensuring that the systems and applications are fully functional in real-time. In the event of a failure at the Columbus or Denver facility, the "swap time" to move all production applications is minimal.
Client data is hosted on the TFCC platform in Columbus, OH and replicated to the Denver facility. Multiple redundant servers ensure that they system is always available. TFCC's proprietary network management software provides for real-time monitoring of all devices including telecommunications links and Internet availability.
Does your utility currently have a text messaging program, or looking to implement one soon?