Do you really know where your customers are?
Do you really know where your customers are?
The Need for “Connected” Customers
For field operating technologies, knowing where our customers are is vitally important
for efficient service to our customers! AP, as other utilities, in the early 1990’s knew
where the customers were ... or, at least where to deliver their utility bills. There had not
been any great need to track where the customers were connected to the “electrical
world”. (Note, gas as a service at AP began in early 2000.)
As new technologies were envisioned, such as Outage Management, the need to know
specifically “what is the relationship of customer to electrical network”, and “what
network device is connected to the customer” becomes a necessity.
How It All Began
In the mid-1990’s, the only technology that touched the customers was the Customer
Information System (CIS). This became AP’s means of tracking where the customer was
attached to the electrical network. In 1994, a project was started, even prior to Outage
Management and AM/FM, to collect each of AP’s customer transformer pole numbers.
Even without capital funds, the project became a reality. Since a meter reader visits
every customer site, the meter readers were chosen as the group to spearhead the data
collection effort. The hand-held meter-reading units prompted the meter reader to enter
the transformer pole number that served the customer. The meter readers were trained to
identify the serving device for the customer, and preceded over the next three years to
collect this information.
In 1996, AP field technologies were revamped to include AM/FM, Outage Management,
Work Management, and Mobile Computing. A central call center was also added to aid
in the needs of our customer base. Technologies became a communications vehicle
between our front door, the Call Center, and our customers.
With the implementation of the technologies, the customer tie to AP facilities became a
great benefit. The initial view of our customers was not complete since AP had no
electrical network to validate the information that had been collected by the meter
readers. The network models being developed with the AM/FM system proved that the
information that was collected did match actual locations for approximately 80 percent of
the customers. Users of the technologies recognized that the more “connected” the
customers, the easier the analysis and use of technology. And, our customer satisfaction
was greatly improved when we knew where they were.
Having 80 percent of customers connected was not adequate, so AP undertook many
efforts for improvement … what is desired at AP is to have more than 99 percent
connected.
