Duke Energy’s Proactive Payment Arrangements Assist Customers During the COVID-19 Crisis
Assisting Customers During
the COVID-19 Crisis
When the COVID-19 outbreak emerged in March, Duke Energy realized the pandemic would affect many customers in unprecedented ways. To be proactive and ensure customers knew Duke was there to help, the utility quickly partnered with a vendor to create customized digital offers, giving customers the ability to request payment arrangements quickly so they were not stuck with a large bill when disconnection moratoriums were lifted. Since the start of the program in late April, Duke Energy has sent more than 500,000 offers to eligible customers, and over 23,000 enrolled in a payment arrangement.
This utility is taking home Gold in Chartwell’s Best Practices Awards for the Billing & Payment category.
Speakers:
Kevin Alexander, Market Research Analyst, Duke Energy
Kevin Alexander is a Journey Lead within Duke Energy’s Customer Experience Transformation organization. Kevin’s role focuses on defining the ideal customer journey and identifying pain points that are barriers to their customers’ ideal state. He has been working on the Deferred Payment Arrangement initiative for several months in partnership with Duke Energy’s IT, Accounts Receivable, Call Center, and Digital Experience groups. Through this project, Kevin’s goals have been to ease customer concern of their account status during the pandemic in a way that creates a positive customer experience during a volatile time.
Paul Watkins, Manager of Digital Strategy, Duke Energy
Paul Watkins is the Manager of Digital Strategy for Duke Energy’s Customer Operations. He’s been with Duke for 10 years serving as the New Product Development, Ideation Manager and Manager of Customer Web Technology. In 2019, Paul and his team won the James B. Duke award for Duke Energy’s Builder Portal solution. He’s been a guest speaker on mobile technology at Stanford University’s Center for Integrated Facility Engineering. A two-time winner of Charlotte Chamber’s Startup and Innovation awards for 2002 and 2004; and a 2002 National Association of Counties (NACo) Innovation winner.
Paul has a BSBA in Marketing Management from East Carolina University and completed the Harvard Management Development Program at Queens University.
