UGI’s award-winning CIS transformation is improving customer relations
Nearly two years ago, UGI launched an ambitious effort to overhaul how it communicates with its customers.
In September 2017, UGI moved its 30-year-old customer information system, which was mainframe platform-based, to a new SAP platform-based customer relationship and billing system.
The transition has been so successful that UGI has been named the 2018 “Utility of the Year” by SAP. The award is presented annually to the utility that excels—and is taking continual steps to transform—in all aspects of its business. “Change has been driven and embraced from the CEO on down, creating a conducive corporate culture as UGI turns ‘good’ into ‘great,’” SAP said on its website.
Three key drivers informed the decision to make the change, Srinivasa Devarkonda, director of IT systems operations at UGI, told American Gas.
The first was scalability of the systems for business growth, and the second was integration capabilities with newer technologies to improve customer service, such as online bill pay, a customer portal for outages and additional communications.
“This made it significantly easier for customers to do business with UGI, as they can see the details of the invoice, budget bills and schedule the payment at their convenience through any of their devices, including PCs, tablets or smartphones,” Devarkonda said.
The third key driver was to further improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business processes, both customer-facing and internal, he said.
The customer system upgrade also allowed UGI to consolidate all of its toll-free contact numbers to a single 800 number that UGI customers can use to contact the company for emergency calls and information inquiries.
The second phase of the program, now underway, will finish upgrading the company’s financial and supply-chain systems by next spring. Future phases will address UGI’s work management and geospatial information systems, the utility said.