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Arizona Public Service (APS)

How to EnterCompany: Arizona Public Service (APS)
Company Description: APS, Arizona’s largest and longest-serving electricity utility, serves more than 1.1 million customers in 11 of the state’s 15 counties. With headquarters in Phoenix, APS is the principal subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corp. (NYSE: PNW).
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Award for Innovation in Customer Service

Nomination Title: Hitting the Trifecta: the aps.com/ Call Center Service Solution

Tell the story about your organization's innovations in customer service since the beginning of July 2010 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Electricity is not a glamorous commodity like satellite television or high-
speed internet that people purchase to enhance their lifestyle; but it is
essential in delivering these things. Satisfaction in the Electricity Industry
can be tricky and meeting customer expectations to deliver fast, efficient and
effective service must be a continuous and creative effort.

Arizona Public Service (APS) has taken on the challenge of delivering on this
service expectation through a unique collaboration between aps.com website
marketing and our customer call center. By creating a service solution that
utilizes call center associates to promote customer account registration on
aps.com, we have experienced one of those uncommon three-tiered successes, like
hitting the Trifecta at the horse races. Our horses go by the names of Customer
Adoption, Employee Satisfaction and Big Savings.

The solution employed to “get in the race” started with adding an aps.com pre-
registration link to our Customer Information System (CIS) that enables
associates to quickly ask customers for their email address and pre-register
their online account. By implementing this step into the call flow, we reduced
Average Handling Time (AHT) of this activity from 45 seconds to 15. With only a
few steps to complete after receiving an email, customers are on their way to
improved account management and self-service. (On average, each registered
customer conducts four transactions per year on aps.com that may have otherwise
been handled by the call center.)

In the summer of 2010, we began a call center engagement strategy that incents
teams and individuals for account registrations, paperless billing and
automatic bill payment enrollments via the pre-registration link. Campaigns,
including “Get Paperless”, “March Madness” and the “aps.com Football Frenzy”,
are now recurrent events that reward associates with trophies, catered
celebrations and prizes (such as vacations and HDTVs). While associates battle
for Championship titles and bragging rights, our customer program participation
increases. The excitement factor builds with each campaign and call center
leaders inspire their teams to produce incredible results. Even when not
actively campaigning, promotional activity is sustained throughout the year.

Here is how our “horses” measured up in 2011:

1. Customer Adoption - Prior to implementation of the pre-registration
link in CIS, we averaged fewer than 500 links per month generated by call
center associates. In October 2011 during our “Football Frenzy”, we reached a
milestone of over 10,000 in one month. In total during 2011, the call center
was responsible for 87,820 links sent to customers resulting in 34,692 new
account registrations for an adoption rate of 39.5%!

2. Employee Satisfaction - Contests and incentives contributed to the APS
call center earning “Highest Employee Satisfaction in the Energy Sector”
and “World Class Employee Satisfaction” in 2011 as awarded by the Service
Quality Measurement Group.

3. Big Savings -New account registrations and paperless billing enrollment
generated from the call center in 2011 will provide an annual estimated savings
of $449,000.

Not a bad day at the races!

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

http://www.energylibrary.com/index.cfm/ID/7/iNewsID/260/
http://www.sqmgroup.com/2011-call-center-award-winners


Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated customer service organization:

The APS Departments responsible for this effort are the Customer Programs
division of Marketing, led by Kelley Coats, and the Customer Care Center, led
by Denise Hutchinson. Both of these leaders inspire their teams to come up with
creative, collaborative solutions to go above and beyond in serving the needs
of our customers.

Kelley has led the Customer Programs Team for four years,and has been at APS in
the Marketing Department for seven years.

Denise has led the Customer Care Center for seven years, and has been an
employee of APS in several Customer Service areas since 1982.