© 2008 Eventure Events. All rights reserved.

IC Web Client Callcenter at Mobile Gas

Melanie Berry

Mobile Gas

Douglas Taylor

Axon

Objectives

1. How Mobile Gas evaluated the thin-client web based call center solution

2. Implementation and go-live experience

3. Feedback and Issues with IC Web Client

1. Mobile Gas History / CIS Project

2. IC WebClient vs. Traditional GUI

3. Mobile Gas Implementation of IC WebClient

4. IC WebClient Demo

5. Mobile Gas Experience with IC WebClient

6. Q&A

Agenda

• Mobile Gas Service Corporation – wholly owned subsidiary of Sempra Global– Natural Gas Utility, established in 1836– Serves two counties in Southwest Alabama– Approximately 95,000 customers – residential, commercial,

industrial– Prior Customer Care &

Billing System was a 30 year old legacy COBOL-based system.

Mobile Gas History

CIS Project

• Selected SAP in May 2006 • SAP ERP/IS-U 6.0• Original intent was to implement SAPGUI CIC for front

office users• Project Kick-off was August 2006• Before the beginning of Blueprint, Axon Global, our

systems integrator, discussed SAP’s recommendations for new implementations to use the Web IC for the interaction center instead of CIC

• Went live on March 3, 2008 – 1st utility in North America using the IC WebClient

IC WebClient vs. Traditional GUI

IC WebClient vs. Traditional GUI

• Why Web IC?– Future Support – do it now or do it later– Cost – cost to implement now vs future

implementation cost– User-Friendly/ Intuitive Navigation – Positive Training impact

Mobile Gas Implementation ofIC WebClient• Blueprint Design Challenges

– Had to install CRM/IC WebClient on Axon system to understand differences since no one had system implemented

– Had to develop an understanding as to how all the components fit together between the ECC and CRM – SAP provided assistance to Axon in this area

– Available expertise was limited - Axon and SAP were committed to getting us to a successful startup

SAP provided support through the Labs/Industry Business unit

Support included Training, Workshops, Configuration, Enhancements, Issue Resolution, Go-Live Support

Axon provided additional CRM resources to project/ took a shared risk

Mobile Gas Implementation of IC WebClient

• Enhancements to IC WebClient– Customization of views to remove/add fields on

screen – level of difficulty depends on whether or not field is already included in the Business Object Repository (BOR) and Business Object Layer (BOL)

• Deposit Amounts during Move-In• Legacy Account

Mobile Gas Implementation of IC WebClient

• Enhancements to IC WebClient (cont.)– SAP created a custom view for installation facts

• Tracking of appliances• Billing Facts

– Custom bill view linked to bill print document archive

– IC WebClient BP view to create BP and CA directly in IS-U• Use of templates• Eliminates number of transaction launcher calls

– Interaction records associated with other business objects• Premises

Mobile Gas Implementation ofIC WebClient

• Advantages/Disadvantages in IC WebClient– Intuitive grouping of information and navigation to

customer data– Not all traditional transactions are covered by

simplified views within this framework.• New views and functions simplify processing and usability• Missing views require traditional and IC WebClient GUI mix

– Two user interface situation – in the current situation, only a subset of users have IC WebClient as their primary interface. This leads to training on two different user interfaces – front office vs back office

Mobile Gas Implementation of IC WebClient

• Considerations in choosing IC WebClient– Technology skill set – different skill set required from

support/implementation– Hardware considerations – Hardware must be sized

to run CRM whether you are implementing CRM or CRM “Lite”.

– Replication Requirements - BP, CA, Contacts, iBase (represents technical master data) – depending on your processes, you may need additional objects including contracts to products

Mobile Gas Implementation ofIC WebClient

• Considerations in choosing IC WebClient (cont.)– IC WebClient and the back office – usual practice is to

use CIC0 for easy customer information access and FOP for back office functions. We had to develop more specific views and add calls to the back office transactions to cover back office functionality

– Systems Integrator experience – SI/the SAP market will need CRM experience plus will have to learn how the utility transactions operate through the Web IC.

IC WebClient Overview

Enhancing Web Views/View Sets• Toolset Transformed Our Approach To Processes

– Made simple field changes more easy if information available in Object Repository– Able to add fields to the Object Repository if needed

Address InformationAddress Information

Interactions related by Premise

Interactions related by Premise

Inst. Facts (Appliances)Inst. Facts (Appliances)NotificationsNotificationsRed TagsRed Tags

Create Customer, Locate & Review Premises, Execute Move-In, Save

Interaction Record

Process Walk Thru

Call Is Done

Mobile Gas Experience with IC Web Client

• Go Live Experience– Very smooth startup from Call Center perspective– Within two days, call center agents were confident

enough on the interface to suggest the best way to perform tasks

– Positive opinion of IC WebClient by the call center agents – “They liked it!”

Mobile Gas Experience with IC Web Client• Search Capabilities in IC Web Client

– Capability to search for either Premise or Contract Account using the various data

– Premise search is considered especially useful by Call Center

Mobile Gas Experience with IC Web Client

• Interaction Records– Interaction Records have several nice features

• Follows everything the rep did while in the call• Populates this in the clipboard• Includes enhancement to track premise information

– We are not seeing the full benefits of this yet – although transaction always ends at the interaction record, reps are not always filling out the interaction record

• Interaction Records– One way replication of contacts/interaction records

• Contacts replicate to IC Web but not as an interaction records

• Have to go to different place in IC Web Client to see contacts• Lack of consolidation of customer interactions/contacts is

resulting in more time to research issues

Interaction Records and Contacts

It has all the needed information to explain customer’s bill plus link to the bill document

Custom Bill View is our “Bible” screen

Difference in FPL9 (backend) and Account History

• FPL9 (Account History Display) has several different views available

• For our loans application, the Receivables view clearly shows the loans transaction

• Open Item Processing in IC Web Client matches the Receivables view

• Account History in IC Web Client matches the Chronology view which makes it difficult for the Call Center to handle calls relating to loans

• Currently implementing enhancement to correct this issue

FPL9 Account History

IC Web Client Open Item Processing

IC Web Client Account History

Replication issues

• Have an on-going issue with premise replication– Will receive message “Not all premises in back end replicated”– Have a workaround to clear up the time slice issue– Workaround has not always cleared up issue

• Timing issue with replication– Data entered in the ECC system will occasionally take significant

amount of time to replicate – especially critical if call center rep is waiting on information to process move-in

– Have mostly seen this around technical master data entry

Other Issues

• Internet Explorer capability – We have been unable to get IC Web Client to work with IE7– SAP Labs and Developer has looked at it and said should work

with IE7– Currently have note in with OSS

• Security problems harder to diagnose– Have found it more difficult to diagnose security issues –

especially if the security problem is on the ECC side– Have found a few occasions where user could perform the

function in the backend but could not in IC Web Client

Performance Issues

• Have experienced some system performance issues– Upgraded call center/customer relations systems– Upgrade required to network in call center– Workflows in ECC system had issue causing overall system

degradation– Worked through those issues but still had concerns from Call

Center– Determined response time for Business Agreement views

unacceptable – up to 30-45 seconds– Worked with SAP through OSS – have applied note in system to

address with issue– Will continue to monitor

Performance Issues

• Call Center performance– Immediately after go-live

• Avg talk time doubled• Avg wait time and abandonment rate quadrupled

– Now• Avg talk time still doubled• Avg wait time and abandonment double pre go-live

– Three issues driving this• Screen response time – addressing with note• Custom interface to dispatch system is adding significant overhead

(not IC Web Client related)• Difficulty with deciphering merchandise accounts/ balanced billing –

addressing with enhancements

© 2008 Eventure Events. All rights reserved.

Melanie Berry

Mobile Gas

Douglas Taylor

Axon