Gregg Knight, Sr. VP & Chief Customer Officer

Strategy of the Consumer

September 24, 2015

Summary Information

• Headquartered in Houston, Texas

• 8,700 Employees

• Third largest combined electricity

and natural gas delivery company

in US ($21.8 Billion in Assets and

$8.1 Billion in Revenue)

• 5.5 million plus customers

2.2 million electric customers

3.3 million gas customers

• Multiple Business Segments

Electric Transmission

& Distribution

Natural Gas Distribution

Competitive Natural Gas

Sales & Services

CenterPoint Energy

2

• Focus

Safe and reliable infrastructure

Success measured by frequency of outage, length of outage

• Reactive customer engagement

Success measured by % of calls answered in x time

Responded to regulatory complaints

• Customer Expectations

Measured against a traditional utility experience

Lagging behind other industries in advanced tools (apps, social media, CSAT metrics etc.)

Customer engagement predominately event-driven.

Where we started a traditional electric utility model

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Changing Consumer Expectations

Un

str

uctu

red

Connected

Visual

Interactive

Flexible

Dynamic

Con

sult

ati

ve

Real-time

Personalized4

Source: 2010 Convergys Consumer Scorecard Research

Value My Time

Value Me

Value My Money

Addressing the needs of a

customer on their first contact

is the most important factor

in a superior service

experience.

Consumers are not just

looking for the lowest cost but

the best value in their

customer interactions.

Consumers feel entitled

to good service and want

to feel like a valued

customer.

Demand is growing for

multichannel customer care

that combines agent-assisted

service with automation and

self-service options.

Value My Preferencesconsumers

Consumer trends – relationship economy

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• Smart meter/Intelligent Grid technology (sms, email, phone, web)

Proactive outage notification preferences and dynamic ETR (estimated time

of restoration)

• Customers want low-effort interactions (web/mobile, IVR, social)

Pay bill, bill reminders, initiate service, sign up for plans, etc.

Ease-of-use raises satisfaction; high-effort lowers satisfaction

• Customer Vision: achieve fully integrated personalized, proactive,

interaction across agent, mobile and IVR channels

Enables higher satisfaction at lower cost

CSR focus from transactional to consultative

• Models of customer service in banking, telecommunications are

driving customer expectations and engagement transformation

Where we’re headed What are the Catalysts for Change?

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CenterPoint Energy will be recognized as a transformational industry leader that leverages technology to provide innovative services and solutions that are mutually beneficial to CNP and our stakeholders. These solutions will inspire confidence and peace of mind in our customers and key market stakeholders.

• The Customer should know what we know when we know it

• Customer differences and preferences should be filtered into our deployment of technology

• Customer service embodies the entire service experience – not just the phone center interaction

• Voice of the customer will be utilized to prioritize, define and build the right solutions

• A clear communication approach regarding our market model and capabilities is required so that we

are recognized by customers and stakeholders for providing the infrastructure that results in an

improved customer experience

• We need to demonstrate to the regulators our role in bringing value to the market ,which may

require us to have more active engagement with our electric end-use customers to ensure they get the

full benefit of our smart grid deployment

• Our vision is predicated on sound data quality as it relates to two-way communication with our

customers

• We must be diligent in continuous business improvement through process efficiency review, cross-

functional collaboration and timely issue resolution

CenterPoint Energy’s Customer Vision

Guiding Principles

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Customer channels and preferences

We must deliver a single brand that accounts for our overlapping customer base, our

service offerings, and the choice of channels our customers prefer to use.

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Guiding principles

“The company doesn’t recognize or value me.”

“The Company knows who I am and understands my needs.”

“I have to contact the company every time I have a problem or issue.”

“I get different information from different sources within the Company depending on which contact channel I use.”

“The Company will proactively inform me of an issue or outage on my preferred communication channel.

“I get the same information no matter how I contact the company and know what to expect at every interaction”

“I have a hard time finding and accessing the resources I need to address my issues.”

“I can easily locate the answers to my questions and resolve issues myself.”

Customer

Empowerment

Personalization

Customer

Communication

Consistency &

Simplification

Key Themes

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CenterPoint Energy’s

Portfolio

CenterPoint Energy integrated a full portfolio of customer-facing projects under the CustomerOne brand to ensure delivery of a premier customer experience in every interaction channel.

The resulting platform now provides consumers with actionable, premise-specific information regarding their service in a true multi-channel delivery.

CRM

CHART

Credit & Collections

Web Redesign

Outage Notification

Other Customer One Projects/Initiatives

ADMS/OMS (Outage)

Mobile Data

Common Authentication Framework (CAF)

SAP Upgrade10

Explore & Validate Prioritize Refine

Objective: Confirm assumptions and gain in-depth understanding about customers’ view of best in class service. Results will be input for quantitative survey

How: Hold 6-9 residential groups total in HO, MN, AR; mix demos, contact preference.

Customer Focus Groups Quantitative Survey

Objective: Timely customer feedback throughout the project “build” process .

How: Short surveys using Corp Comm’s customer community .

Ongoing Feedback

Objective: Confirm/refine requirements for RFP.

How: Quantitative survey to prioritize key needs and features uncovered in the focus groups. (This could include conjoint analysis to determine the features that are most/least important to customers).

Objective:: Identify potential user issues prior to launch.

How: Test functionality of new system with customers

Usability Testing

Objective: Track customer satisfaction with interactions to determine whether success measures have been achieved.

How: Survey customers following interactions

Also continue monitoring JD Power

Post-Implementation

Track

Objective: Review existing research and industry research (where freely available) to establish benchmarks and trends

Results: Benchmark current performance and use as input to quantitative survey.

Audit Secondary Research

Goal: Ensure customer’s voice is included throughout

CustomerOne development and after implementation

Customer Vision

market research approach

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High Bill

Cold

Weather

Rules

Move In/

Move Out

Disconnect/

Reconnect

HSP Service

Orders

Pay My Bill

Electric

Street Light

Outage

Eight (8) High Volume Processes

Electric

Outage

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Wrap Up

Proactive Communications

Intelligent RoutingSelf Service

Containment

Consultation/Offer Agent Interaction

Customer Interaction Lifecycle - Process

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Analytics for the IVR/Self Service

Containment

CONTEXTUALIZE

SHARE

GATHER

Raw Data from

Source Systems

Contextual Information

Collected in HANA

Information Knowledge

Customer

Information

Summary

Real-Time

Information

360ª viewWeb

IVR

• Customer contacts the call center with the potential of one or

more of 40 potential reasons for calling. Utilizing a HANA based

Predictive Analytics Engine (PAE), the most likely reason for the

customer call is predicted, either deflecting the call entirely or

reducing the call agent handling time

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• Analytics captures and delivers information to the Agent’s screen

– providing them with valuable information about the customer

and helping to interact with the customer

Agent Alerts

Outage Alerts

Disconnect/Reconnect

High Bill

Home Service Plus

Analytics to the AgentInteracting with the Customer

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• Analytics captures and delivers customer specific products and

services information – providing customer intelligence to agents in

a single repository for enrolled services, eligible services and

opportunities

Analytics for Consultation/Offer

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Disconnect/Reconnect Gas Service

Gas service disconnected

Turn back on by EOD - Overdue fee

Personalized

messages

depending on

customer’s

reconnection.

Make Payment

Set up time with technicianAll set.

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1 2

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Preserve and

enhance the

brandfor customers,

communities,

shareholders,

regulators, and

employees

Retain current

customers and build

deeper customer

relationships

Continue to invest

in providing

superior customer

service

Acquire

additional

customers

Sustain existing

and create new

sources of revenue

by providing

additional services

Critical customer success factors

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