HERON | EPSILON NET

Case Study

Company: HERON

Category: Energy

Applications: Dynamics 365 for Energy

Company

The HERON Group is a Group of companies active in the production, supply and trade of electrical energy. Starting its activity in 2000, it is now supported by three major energy Groups, GEK TERNA, ENGIE (former GDF Suez) and QATAR PETROLEUM (via QPI GAS & POWER OPC.).
HERON is the first private Group active in the liberalized energy market in Greece. It constructed and has successfully been operating since 2004 the first private electrical production unit in Greece. In 2009, a second combined station followed in the same location.
The Group essentially participates in the National Energy Planning and Programming, with cutting edge technology stations and harmonized operation with the market requirements. With a strong shareholding and production base, the group can offer substantial and long-term benefits to its customers and partners.

Need

Given the challenges the energy sector has been dealing with during the last few years and the rapidly increasing requirements further to the energy market liberalization, HERON sought for a modern, international, specialized Customer Relationships Management solution able to effectively deal with the following challenges:
• Constant products and services renewal, allowing the group to respond to the increasing customer expectations, in service and pricing policy, without budget costs
• Flexibility and immediate adjustment to the fluctuating and constantly changing legislative and regulatory framework
• Deployment of “eco-friendly” technological innovations responding to the profile of energy companies sector, with high environmental footprint
• Customer-oriented design and philosophy, focusing on customer processes instead of measurements
Integration of cutting edge technologies (internet, mobility, etc.)

Solution

In order to cover the above requirements, the HERON Group chose Data Communication (DC) based on its extensive experience in this market.
The Energy Dynamics Accelerator solution was picked, providing integrated Sales Management, Service & Marketing, exclusively for the Electrical Energy and Natural Gas sectors. This solution, developed by DC on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Dynamics ΝΑV platforms, was awarded in the IMPACT Bite Awards (2016) or the specialized functionality it provides, utilizing the structural features of the platform’s productivity & innovation, as well as best international practices.

The following were completed as part of the project:
• Automation of the entire sales cycle, both for commercial departments addressing B2C low voltage customers and BW2B medium and high voltage customers.
• Complete monitoring of basic data for contacts, customers, service requests management & complete monitoring of activities and communications
• Deployment of a mechanism or automatic generation of tasks and supporting documents required for the completion of the application procedure
• Deployment of a mechanism for approval of offers related to corporate customers
• Deployment of an Internet customer service corporate portal (My Heron) to de-congest the customer service department and provide prompter service
• Organization of sales cycle procedures in the external partners network (energy consultants-resellers) & stock management
• Integration with the following systems:
• Customer billing system for bilateral data transfer between the two systems
• Call center for Dial in-out and automatic identification of incoming calls and customer sheet on CRM
• Document management solution (Sharepoint)
• Customer service Internet portal (My Account)
• SMS and e-mail solution for automated messages
• Utilization of clientele information and creation of targeted marketing lists to design promotional actions
• Automation of collection department processes and complete display of related tasks
• Provision of a personalized corporate customer and consumer service process with a customer communication and service center with a unified customer sheet (360°)
• Data migration for initial import of basic data
• Information availability through all channels and from any device
Utilization of Business Intelligence (ΒΙ) features to use all system data

Benefits

• Increase of customer satisfaction & loyalty rate with quicker requests settlement, personalized service and self-service options, on the Web Portal My Heron
• Increase of productivity & effectiveness indicators for all group departments and the external partners network
• Clientele development as a result of successful and targeted marketing campaigns
• Timely collection of customer debts & reduction of business risk and termination requests
• Increase of sales opportunities
• High rate of solution deployment by system users, through a user-friendly and familiar workplace and native integration with Microsoft Office
• Timely and valid administration information on critical performance indicators (KPIs), useful for making administrative decisions