C

The Employee Action Council (EMPAC) for the Customer Care Center is a fully en-gaged partner in help-ing the Customer Care Center to be a place where all employees feel that they belong, believe they can grow and develop, and know they are valued. EM-PAC has been living up to their name in the last few months with a host of educational develop-ment and fun activities. EMPAC recently added a series of Spanish classes for employees to take advantage of during their lunch times. Classes offer conversational phrases to use with customers and in everyday con-versation. Those who attended the spring classes enjoyed an easy learning envi-ronment with plenty of interaction while learning Spanish phrases. Surveys gath-ered from the Spanish classes show that employees value this learning opportunity to help serve Spanish customers by sim-ply being able to use a phrase to assist in transferring the customer to a bilingual

representative. If you were looking for a per-sonal development learning session, EMPAC helped by offering several different lunch-and-learn sessions such as the College Fair, Affinity Group and How to Get the Job You Want . People who attended these sessions learned not only how to more clearly focus on and attain their goal but also how to use other avenues such be-coming a member of a profes-sional or company sponsored organization to build leadership and networking skills. Balancing fun with work is a great way to raise moral and break monotony. EMPAC proved this with the March

PPP Celebration and refresher week. The core of our business relies on help-ing our customers in a timely, high-quality and accurate manner. The PPP celebrations allowed us to celebrate our 2005 success while the Refresher Week helped the Customer Care Center refo-cus our attention on ending 2006 strong. The event displayed key goals from each department within the Center. This event also cast a light on our dress code through our Dress for Success day.

EMPAC DELIVERS

S E P T E M B E R B U S I N E S S R E S U L T S

Volume 5 Issue 3 Summer Edi t ion

Special points of inter-est:

• GPC Military Honor for CCC Em-ployee –Center Events

• Is the CCC on target with goals?

• CCC celebrated being accident free during the 100 days of Summer campaign

I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :

EMPAC Delivers 1

Business Results 1

The Jets Team 2

Capitol Visit: Billing Services

2

2006 Goals Inside Story

3

BC&C: Revenue Recovery Part 3

4

Family Fun Day 4

Center Events 5

CCC VOICE

Service Level

Cashflow BC&C:

Billing Accuracy

BC&C Charge off

Goal YTD 80% 15m 68.2% 17.5M

Actual YTD

76.3% - 72.6%

$14,966,487

CVI

Res. 66% Bus. 61%

Res. 68% Bus. 63%

Month 66% — Res. 65% Bus. 63%

68.2% $2,138,535

Employees listen to a presenta-tion on “How to Get the Job you Want” Photo by: Jim Maynard

CCC Voice Volume 5 Issue 4

CCC Voice

The newest team in the Customer Care Center (CCC) is working to de-velop a ‘win-win’ situation for phone consultants and themselves. The new JETS team is a com-bination of the Lead Rep-resentatives and the En-hanced Services Team. JETS team members are available for new and seasoned phone consult-ants for one-on-one in-struction and information. The team will also be available for individual-ized coaching when re-quested by supervisors. The plan, according to Jeff Petrea, the JETS’ supervisor, is to have this team taking escalated calls while also helping consultants on the floor. Additionally, the team will own the “e-Now” training modules and will be able to customize it to an indi-vidual consultant’s train-ing needs. For example, if a representative is lack-ing job knowledge about a procedure such as the

‘authorized person’ policy, then the team will have a module on this topic. This is an-other step toward help-ing consultants better understand Georgia Power policies and procedures. While some details of team structure are still being worked out, the JETS team and the CCC will have an over-all ‘win-win’ situation. The phone consultants will win by getting the assistance of senior representatives through mentoring, individual coaching, the eNow modules, and the handling of escalated calls. The JETS team members benefit by having this new larger team, allowing members more opportu-nity to enhance or work on their personal devel-opment. Moving from a team of eleven members to over twenty members makes focusing on per-

sonal development easier to achieve than before. Jeff Petrea is optimistic and enthused about his new JETS Team.

If you have not had the opportunity to visit our Capitol, please visit www.sos.state.ga.us/onlinetour for a virtual tour. There is a great informa-

On May 25th, Billing Ser-vices toured the Georgia State Capitol. The tour was a great learning ex-perience for everyone. We had the “opportunity to view the most impor-tant government building in the state and learn about the heritage of Georgians”. The tour gave us an “overview of Georgia history including portraits, statues, and the Capitol building”.

tion throughout the Secre-tary of State’s website. Become informed so that we may continue to im-prove our wonderful state by holding our legislators and senators accountable for the decisions that are made. Get involved, and be a proud citizen of Geor-gia!

Page 2

A C L O S E R L O O K AT T H E JETS T E A M

“Working to develop a ‘win-win’ situation for phone consultants and

themselves.”

Team Outing coordinators: Dee Jackson, Dean Ramono and Nancy Tumberlin

“ The tour gave us an overview of Georgia

history…”

Jets Team member helps consult-ants

Orange flag indicates a consultant needs assistance

Billing Services Team at the capitol

CCC Voice Volume 5 Issue 4

CCC Voice

Each department within the Customer Care Cen-ter (CCC) has a set of goals they work to achieve. As we near the end of third quarter, let’s visit where the CCC stands in relation to our respective departmental goals, then review how some goals were estab-lished. The common goals for the CCC are Service Level (YTD 76.3%), Cus-tomer Value Index (YTD 68 % residential ) and Target Zero. Other rela-tive goals include: Billing Accuracy (YTD 72.6% ), Charge Off (YTD approx.14.9M) and En-hanced Services (YTD data). The CCC is fairing well, yet there is room for improvement. To learn how some goals are set, we use the Sales and Services goals as our example. Sales and Services goals for this year were created around a key theme: “continued outstanding success of the business and fairness to the employees”. We gain better insight from June Wood and Bobby Wilson from Sales and Services and Unique Customer Solutions, who offer an explanation of how and why their expec-tations are set. Overall goals are usually driven by Georgia Power and Southern Company’s business strategy. As part of an organization that is critical to Georgia

Power and Southern Company’s suc-cess, we continue to review and estab-lish expectations that support both the business and people focus of the Customer Care Center. These strategies are then filtered down to all organi-zations within a functional area including our Cus-tomer Service Organiza-tion, under Mickey Brown, and Marketing & Customer Service, under our Vice President Mike Clanton. This year, we focused efforts to align our call center goals with the goals of other call centers within Southern Com-pany.* Each CCC depart-ment works within their organization to meet or exceed team and individ-ual performance goals that focus on: • Shareholder Value • Customer Commitment • Operation Innovation • Valued People Employee feedback fac-tors into the goal setting process. This is taken into consideration when the goals are established. As June Wood states, “engaged employees definitely contribute to a successful business” and we need to do a better job of getting all em-ployees engaged. Our goals continue to focus

on our customers and shareholders (which are the reason we ex-ist) and our employees help us contribute to our outstanding company success. Sharing his perspective, Bobby Wilson, who over-sees the ACS, BCC, late shift, Spanish, and JETS teams (collectively know as Unique Customer So-lutions), has to balance the responsibilities of a more diverse organiza-tion. However, he says there are 3 core goals he wants all his teams to focus on: revenue, speed of answering the calls, and customer satisfac-tion. We have to sustain company revenue, and that is one of our key drivers. Our company’s growth has to match our revenue targets. With that growth comes the reac-tion of our investors in the company. Therefore, to constantly generate reve-nue and increase stock prices, our goals must be challenging. One of the goals is to promote in-creased use of Online Customer Care. Our E-bill, EFT, and Flat Bill

Page 3

2006 G O A L S : H O W I S T H E CCC DO I N G ?

“We have to sustain company revenue, ... that is one of our key drivers.”

products are some of the best ways for Georgia Power to “decrease cost and time with calls and increase our revenue”. These transactions are less costly and customers desire these self-service options. So as you can see, Georgia Power and the Customer Care Center are constantly striving to be the best. There is a lot that goes into creating the yearly goals, and these goals are vital to the life of our company. This year’s goals were made in the hopes that it will be another great year that is full of personal and com-pany-wide success. * Based on a Customer Care Center Goal Commit-tee commissioned by, Don Conoly to review Center-Wide Goals for 2006.

By: Gretchen Buckalew & Chelsea Miles

CCC Voice Volume 5 Issue 4

CCC Voice

If you’ve been following the Billing Credit and Col-lection series in the Voice, you learned more about Active Collections, Special Service Accounts (SSA) and the Commer-cial Credit group. In this final installment of this three part series we will learn more about Reve-nue Recovery(R/R) Col-lections team (formerly Final Bills), supervised by Gene Holmes. The R/R Collections team consists of one a lead representa-tive, and thirteen collec-tion specialists who col-lect revenue on charged off accounts for Residen-tial and Commercial ac-counts.

How it works Revenue Recovery uses a system called Collec-tion Works (CW) that sys-tematically distributes and schedules accounts to the appropriate collec-

tion specialist, generates collection letters, and tracks all actions on ac-counts. Collection spe-cialists are responsible for taking and making calls to debtors and ne-gotiating payment with them. Collection Works is de-signed to schedule pay-ments based upon how the debtor can pay. If a debtor cannot pay the entire balance in full at the time of the call, the collection specialist works out a payment plan as to when the debtor can pay. Some examples of a pay-ment plan include, but are not limited to: splitting the amount owed into two or three payments to be paid weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.

Goals:

Revenue Recovery has a team collection goal and each collection specialist is responsible for contrib-uting their part to meet this goal. Each person is responsible for making approximately 2,500 phone calls per month.

Revenue Recovery col-lectors also have to col-lect a certain dollar amount each month as a part of their individual goal. In January, Revenue Re-covery Collected 1.3 mil-lion, and $2 million for February. Last year, the total amount of payments brought in was $17 mil-lion.

What types of accounts go

to Revenue Recovery? Any final account that either reaches a collec-tion status of ‘Sent To Bad Debt System’ or is manually charged off, will be captured in CSS and input into the Collection Works system to be worked by the R/R Col-lections Team. Any new and updated customer information on Charged Off accounts can be sent to the GPC Final Bills email box.

energy going, there was something for everyone: a mixed of music dance tunes, a variety of snack foods or and hamburg-ers, chips and a drink. A recent EMPAC survey reveals most employee had a great time and look forward to more events like this!

Family Fun Day, held September 23, 2006, was a treat for many CCC families. Some d en-joyed the many of the carnival games including rock climbing , while other competed in the bingo fun. To keep the

Page 4

RE V E N U E RE C OV E RY –PA RT3

“Collection Works

is designed to

schedule

payments based

upon how the

debtor can pay.”

Two teens dance to the mu-sic.

More pictures...

Children enjoy the jumbo slide.

Bingo players mark their playing card.

CCC Voice Volume 5 Issue 4

way of life and to make the world a better place for everyone." *

Monday, July 17, 2006 — Georgia Power honored its citizen-soldiers today with a re-ception at 241 Ralph McGill and the dedication of a dramatic oil paint-ing depicting the service of soldiers in Iraq and else-where. President and CEO Mike Garrett said in the dedication cere-mony. "Today, we want to say thank you for each and every sacrifice you made to preserve our

Linwood was the 1st SGT of the 988 Quar-termaster Company headquartered in Dub-lin, Ga., before being deployed to Iraq in sup-port of Iraqi freedom with the 158th Aviation Regiment from Fort Hood, TX. During com-bat operations, he was the NCOIC of theater SSA operations for ro-tary wing aircraft repair parts north of Baghdad (Balad). During this tour he was decorated with

the Bronze Star ribbon.

*The Citizen

G E O R G I A P O W E R H O N O R E D I T S C I T I Z E N - S O L D I E R S

Linwood Allen is in the middle on the right of the framed picture.

On September 26, the Customer Care Center and the Safety Team

celebrated an accident free ‘100 Days of Summer’. The Safety team offers a putt-putt game, puzzles and prizes to the win-ners! There was also a lunch for everyone from the Varsity.

Putt-Putt fun Employees enjoy The Varsity

nity to network and get my name recognized.” -Lakecia Burnam

-Gretchen Buckalew “By writing for the news-letter I have, gotten to know the business. Every little detail such as sched-ule changes, quality im-pacts, and even weather changes affect our work environment.” Research-

Welcome new members of the CCC Voice Brandy Rob-inson, Adam Simmons, Ron-nette Smith, Estela Vieyra, & Ana Voyles The CCC Voice would like to congratulate Gloria Bry-ant, Gretchen Buckalew, and Lakecia Burnam for 2 incredible years and many informative articles. These previous members of the CCC Voice have experi-enced what being a student of the business is really like! “Being on the newsletter team gave me the opportu-

ing these areas of the business helped me pro-duce some very informa-tive articles. —Gloria Bryant “Writing for the newsletter has been a creative outlet for me. Learning the his-tory of the call center has made me a student of the business. “I’m going to miss being on the Voice Staff.”

The Voice Newsletter Team

Editor, Photographer & Pub-lisher - Chelsea Miles

Assistant Editor: Glen Brangers

Reporters: Brandy Robinson, Adam Sim-mons, Ronnette Smith, Estela

Vieyra, & Ana Voyles

CCC Voice Page 5