Customer Care Research Consortium

The Customer Care Research Consortium (CCRC) is a blue-ribbon panel of leading customer care executives dedicated to providing member energy utilities with cutting-edge customer service research, as well as a unique forum to share ideas. The CCRC future vision for customer service, research and analysis of industry best practices in customer care strategies has produced a catalog of insightful and relevant research that is shaping the way stakeholders will view customer service quality over the coming years.

Since 2003, the CCRC has spearheaded a number of strategic and tactical initiatives and published a catalog of thought-leading research reports.

Sample Strategic Topics:

• A Day In the Life Of a Customer in 2015 (DILO) - A vision of the customer experience in the year 2015 with the advancement of new technologies and AMI.
• Customer Segmentation Strategies - Explored the drivers behind why companies have elected to perform advanced segmentation studies, examined how companies are leveraging this information in the design of their 'customer experience,' and identified the various market segmentation models that are providing the most value for charting evolving customer expectations.
• Customer Service Model 2011 - Examined the strategic implications of how utilities are likely to manage their customers in the future and the impact this will have for utility operations and business models.
• Customer Communication - Evaluated the impact of different communication strategies on customer satisfaction call volumes.

• Customer Service Quality, Regulatory White Paper and Working Group - Highlighted the strategic implications of CSQ standards for utility operations and business models and highlighted successful member strategies during rate cases connected to CSQ standards.

Sample Tactical Topics:

• New Media - Reviewed the new media techniques being used by industry today including networking web site, micro web sites and blogs. Evaluated how these could be used by utilities and the potential benefits.
• Customer Contact Sourcing Strategies - Examined what is being sourced in the call center and how it is being sourced. Identified the 'lessons learned' as customer interactions are being transformed via digital and wireless media. In addition, emerging sourcing models were identified and their impacts on cost and service quality examined.
• Customer Outage Communications Best Practices and the Use of Proactive Messaging Strategies - Investigated the best practices and lessons learned from customer communication strategies used in responding to outages. Identified how communication strategies are being used to reduce inbound call volume and increase customer satisfaction.
• 'Next Generation' Electronic Billing, Payment and Remittance Strategies - Addressed the strategic issues regarding electronic billing, payment and remittance strategies and presented cross-industry best practices being implemented within the emerging EBPR industry. Highlighted various business models and standards.