Explore Stadtwerke Bielefeld’s journey with SAP

Service agents at Stadtwerke Bielefeld GmbH play an increasingly important role in advising and assisting customers. To help teams efficiently handle growing numbers of inquiries, the utilities company decided to replace multiple customer relationship management systems with a single unified solution based on the SAP Customer Experience portfolio.

Industry	Region	Company Size	Partner
Utilities	Bielefeld, Germany	2,634 employees	Reply Deutschland SE

Making people’s lives easier with reliable, trusted services

Owned by the city of Bielefeld, Germany, municipal utility and service company Stadtwerke Bielefeld GmbH (SWB) provides citizens and businesses in the region with electricity, gas, water, and district heating. In addition, its subsidiaries offer telecommunications, mobility, network infrastructure, public bath, and waste disposal services. With customers expecting ever-higher levels of interaction and engagement, SWB believes providing smooth and efficient service is crucial to improving customer loyalty and reducing churn. However, the fact that each business area held customer information in different systems led to inefficiencies. If a customer called with queries concerning a number of different areas – for example, energy, telecommunications, and public transport – service agents had to open three different systems to serve them. In addition, customers using self-services needed to log on separately to different online portals for each area. Meanwhile, marketing staff were not able to easily target groups of customers using more than one service, limiting their ability to run promotional and cross-selling campaigns. To address this, the company looked for a customer experience management solution that would provide a 360-degree view of customers across its subsidiaries. At the same time, it looked to digitalize and automate processes to increase efficiency in its customer service operations.

During the energy crisis, customer engagement has increased by 25%. Our customers have big concerns and are coming to us with lots of questions as energy prices rise. SAP Service Cloud helps us manage the situation better and concentrate on our customers’ needs. Claudia Ohnezorg Team Leader for Digitalization in Customer Relationship Management, Stadtwerke Bielefeld GmbH

Establishing a unified foundation for customer experience management

Following a thorough evaluation of available solutions, SWB decided to migrate from multiple on-premise instances of the SAP Customer Relationship Management application to a centralized cloud solution based on the SAP Customer Experience portfolio. SAP partner and utilities specialist Reply Deutschland SE provided expert guidance and implementation support, offering preconfigured templates to help deliver a smooth and rapid migration. With the SAP Service Cloud solution, customer service agents now need to open only one screen to access customer accounts across multiple business areas. A ticketing system enables SWB to quickly handle customer tickets and closely monitor inquiry levels. The tight integration with SAP for Utilities solutions means agents can access information such as billing history without leaving SAP Service Cloud. In addition, the company uses SAP Fiori apps to automate processes such as refunding customers after overpayment or transferring accounts following a house move. SAP Customer Data Cloud solutions offer transparent data management across diverse business areas. Advanced consent and identity management functionality allows customers to opt in to and access online portals for different services using a single sign-on instead of registering for and logging in to each site separately. Meanwhile, SAP Marketing Cloud solutions enable marketing personnel to collate and analyze data across SWB’s business activities. In this way, they can identify customer groups using more than one SWB service and create targeted promotional campaigns for these groups.

Providing better service to increase customer loyalty

SWB can now manage customer inquiries – whether by phone, e-mail, or mail – more quickly and efficiently, with better customer experiences leading to improved loyalty and reduced churn rates. The ticketing functionality provided by SAP Service Cloud helps supervisors effectively monitor overall inquiry levels, enabling them to allocate adequate resources and escalate cases where necessary to speed resolution. This increased transparency has proved invaluable when dealing with a sharp rise in inquiries from homeowners in recent months due to steadily increasing energy prices. Having the information service agents need in one place helps them provide customers with the answers they’re looking for faster. This means agents have more time to spend on providing advice and recommending promotional offers that are relevant to customers. As well as benefiting from more-satisfactory interactions with agents at the service center, more than 45,000 SWB customers now also enjoy a smoother experience when using the company’s self-service portals. Whether people use electricity or transport services or the local swimming pool, they can quickly and conveniently log in once to access services across multiple sites.

Using the power of data to enhance customer experiences

With its new cloud-based software, SWB has a scalable foundation on which it can continue to enhance customer experiences for the people of Bielefeld. The company plans to roll out the software across other utilities and services, increasing operational efficiency while improving customer service. SWB is also considering deploying SAP S/4HANA to further strengthen the infrastructure supporting its digital transformation. In addition, the company is looking to expand the range of channels available to customers by integrating chatbot functionality with SAP Service Cloud. Based on a single source of truth provided by SAP Customer Data Cloud and harnessing sophisticated functionality within SAP Marketing Cloud, the marketing team is also beginning to create powerful targeted campaigns. These clearly demonstrate the added value gained by being a customer of more than one of SWB’s businesses, encouraging people to sign up for additional services. What’s more, the company is looking into developing a loyalty scheme that will reward people for their custom across different areas.