2023 Annual Utility Outage Communications Conference

January 24-25, 2023 | Tucson, AZ :: Mountain Time

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“The best time I could spend given our focus on enhancing the outage experience for our customers in the next 6 months. Timely, useful, and engaging material I am excited to share with others in my organization!” – Manager Product Development – CX, Avangrid Networks

“EUCI brings together professionals with valuable expertise who provide insight into the ever-changing issues facing utilities. Conference sessions provide excellent opportunities for discussion and sharing of ideas and solutions that result in useful takeaways, which often have far-reaching benefits for participants.” – Manager Public Relations, Belize Electricity Limited

“EUCI brings exceptional content to our industry that’s consistently relevant and timely. Utilities of all sizes benefit through invaluable information sharing and networking.” – Corporate Communications Manager, Chelan Co. Public Utility District

“Very informative!!!” – Business Process Consultant Senior, Austin Energy

Power outages are almost inevitable but having the right outage alert plan in place can be the difference between major customer frustration and a minor annoyance. At EUCI’s 2023 Outage Communications conference hosted by Tucson Electric Power, utility and industry professionals will share their best practices in dealing with outages and how multiple utilities continue to transform their communication channels. Register today to learn the best actions to take before, during, and after an outage to ensure your customers are prepared when the lights go out.

Learning Outcomes

This conference will provide attendees an opportunity to:

• Learn how The Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) developed an in-house solution to provide power outage notifications to customers via text message, email, and push notifications
• Explore lessons learned from Chelan PUD’s customer outreach and community engagement plan
• Learn how the use of technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) can better communicate the outage process
• Demonstrate how the implementation of a new outage management system can enhance customer engagement
• Recognize how to establish open lines of communication throughout your organization
• Discover best practices for customer communications in use by some of the nation’s most successful utilities

Tuesday, January 24, 2023 : Mountain Time

 

8:30 – 8:45 a.m. :: Welcome and Introductions

8:45 – 9:00 a.m. :: Opening Remarks and Welcome Address from Tucson Electric Power

On behalf of Tucson Electric Power – part of the Fortis family and a local leader in community service, volunteerism, and economic development – Erik Bakken will welcome industry colleagues to Tucson and highlight the importance of outage communications and restoration efforts that provide an opportunity to exceed customer expectations as part of this dynamic industry response.

Erik Bakken, Vice President, System Operations and Environmental, TEP/UNS Energy

9:00 – 9:50 a.m. :: Improving Outage Notifications at KUB with an In-House Solution

The Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) developed an in-house solution to provide power outage notifications to customers via text message, email, and push notifications in the fall of 2021. The in-house solution is integrated with KUB’s utility asset and outage management system, Oracle ADMS (advanced distribution management system). Since the launch, the KUB team has learned important lessons about estimated restoration times and how to best manage notifications during various outage types and sizes. This session will provide insights into integrating a notification solution with existing enterprise systems and best practices related to message consistency across all outage communication channels, including notifications.

Stephanie Tallent, Business Management Analyst, Customer Experience, KUB

Lisa Brummett, Business Management Analyst, Information Services, KUB

9:50 – 10:40 a.m. :: ICS Structures and Crisis Communications: The Dynamic Duo for more Effective, Integrated, and Timely Information

As more organizations adopt an Incident Command System for coordinating emergency event response, professional communicators must learn to navigate the formality of a military-rooted process while remaining agile and transparent in providing public information. Duke Energy adopted ICS for emergency response several years ago and, working within ICS, the company’s crisis communication plan has matured into a robust playbook for engaging key stakeholders at the right time, with the right information using multiple communication channels. Whether it’s power outages, floods, operational events or even a pandemic, the company’s communicators are prepared to keep their customers and employees informed.   

Deb Smith, Corporate Communications Emergency Planning Manager, Duke Energy

10:40 – 11:00 a.m. :: Networking Break

11:00 – 11:40 a.m. :: Customer Outreach and Community Engagement

Chelan PUD takes customer outreach and community engagement very seriously. The utility uses the International Association for Public Participation and Core Values in planning and executing customer engagement activities. Outage communications are a key element of the company’s outreach program. In this session, learn more about how Chelan PUD consults /involves/collaborates with the public and hear about some of their proactive outreach measures because of power outages.

Teka Sellers, Customer Outreach Specialist, Chelan County PUD

11:40 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. :: Managing Outages with Conversational Artificial Intelligence at Evergy

Using conversational AI technologies and human understanding, Evergy is working to provide excellent customer engagement. The virtual assistant lets customers communicate in their own words. This help to create an effortless customer experience from start to finish for customers with outages.

Lindsay Washburn, Digital Business Analyst, Evergy

12:30 – 1:30 p.m. :: Group Luncheon

1:30 – 2:30 p.m. :: TEP Panel Discussion on Improving Customer Satisfaction across Outages

While a power outage may have a negative impact on customers, it’s also an opportunity for a Utility to demonstrate its skills across the organization to exceed customer expectations.  Seizing this opportunity, hear from a panel of cross-functional experts at Tucson Electric Power (TEP) on how they navigated a shared Officer goal to analyze current outage operations to develop an actionable strategy to improve customer satisfaction across the outage process.

Moderated by John Bord, Manager of Customer Experience, attendees will hear the benefits of journey mapping, accurate ETRs, proactive communications, social media tactics, de-briefs with managed commercial accounts, CSR communications and much more.  

John Bord, Manager of Customer Experience, Tucson Electric Power

Brandy Allen, Customer Service Business Process & Technology Manager, Tucson Electric Power

Andy Cole, Manager, Brand Communications, Tucson Electric Power

2:30 – 3:20 p.m. :: From Old Tech to New:  Adoption of an Outage Management System

The City of Palo Alto Utilities is in the process of adopting a new outage management system which will greatly enhance our ability to notify customers and mobilize resources in response to electric outages and emergencies. The City’s existing electric outage management system (OMS) was purchased in 2011 and has not been upgraded due to system incompatibility and vendor constraints. Over the years, the utility and communications team have utilized a variety of relatively low-tech public information outreach means to communicate about outages to customers. With general enhancements and unification of technology, the utility is replacing the current OMS to better suit the operational environment and growing needs in better service to its community at-large.

Catherine Elvert, Communications Manager, City of Palo Alto Utilities

3:20 – 3:50 p.m. :: Networking Break

3:50 – 4:30 p.m. :: Using Bot Automation for Timely and Effective Planned Outage Communications

There’s never a convenient time to perform planned outage work, and how we communicate to customers during this time goes a long way. To improve customer experience and create consistency among work groups, you’ll hear how APS enacted a bot solution to send advanced communications to customers using their preferred communication channel, along with automated alerts during the actual outage. In addition to providing an improved outage experience, the new functionality allows APS to meet regulatory requirements more effectively, as well as reduce human performance errors. The panel will discuss some challenges and opportunities in the ongoing effort to ensure customers can plan their lives around planned outages.

Aimee Quintana, Customer Experience Consultant, APS

Sanket Adhikari, Digital Solution Delivery, APS

Keisha Williams, Sr. Acct Exec., Customer Solutions, APS

4:30 p.m. :: Day One Adjourns

 

Wednesday, January 25, 2023 : Mountain Time

 

8:30 – 9:20 a.m. :: Strategic Communications for Outages and More

Establishing more strategic customer outage communications and enhancing explicit alerts requires a deliberate and tactical approach especially in today’s world. From field ops to customer satisfaction, from IT to customer service, from regulatory to communications, all departments need to be involved and on the same page. This presentation will serve as a platform to educate and share how the use of technology assists with a comprehensive outage communications strategy to improve customer satisfaction during unusual times.

Melanie Wemple, Director, E Source

9:20 – 10:10 a.m. :: Other Emergency Communications, in Addition to Storms, COVID & Wildfires

Whether it’s hurricanes, high winds, extreme heat or cold, every utility faces its own set of weather-related issues or other types of emergencies that can leave customers in the dark. Outage communications are an essential part of any energy utility’s communications strategy. In this presentation, attendees will hear how AE uses their newer outage communication tools to cope with the outages process whether caused by a storm or some other type of emergency.

Madeline Campbell, Staff Development Manager, Austin Energy

10:10 – 10:40 a.m. :: Networking Break

10:40 – 11:45 a.m. :: Utility Roundtable Discussion on Outage Communications

In this interactive roundtable discussion, you will have the opportunity to talk with your peers about successes and challenges with outage communications. This session also gives you the opportunity to brainstorm new ideas that might work to develop new initiatives at your utility. Bring your questions, challenges and thinking caps to the table.

Madeline Campbell, Staff Development Manager, Austin Energy

Lindsay Washburn, Digital Business Analyst, Evergy

Catherine Elvert, Communications Manager, City of Palo Alto Utilities

Keisha Williams, Sr. Acct Exec., Customer Solutions, APS

11:45 a.m. :: Conference Adjourns

• Sanket Adhikari, Digital Solution Delivery, APS

• Brandy Allen, Customer Service Business Process & Technology Manager, Tucson Electric Power

• Erik Bakken, Vice President, System Operations and Environmental, TEP/UNS Energy

• John Bord, Manager of Customer Experience, Tucson Electric Power

• Lisa Brummett, Business Management Analyst, Information Services, KUB

• Madeline Campbell, Staff Development Manager, Austin Energy

• Andy Cole, Manager, Brand Communications, Tucson Electric Power

• Catherine Elvert, Communications Manager, City of Palo Alto Utilities

• Aimee Quintana, Customer Experience Consultant, APS

• Teka Sellers, Customer Outreach Specialist, Chelan County PUD

• Deb Smith, Corporate Communications Emergency Planning Manager, Duke Energy

• Stephanie Tallent, Business Management Analyst, Customer Experience, KUB

• Lindsay Washburn, Digital Business Analyst, Evergy

• Melanie Wemple, Director, E Source

• Keisha Williams, Sr. Acct Exec., Customer Solutions, APS

REGISTER NOW FOR THIS EVENT:

2023 Annual Utility Outage Communications Conference

January 24-25, 2023 | Tucson, AZ

Buy 4 in-person seats and only pay for 3! For this event every fourth in-person attendee is free!

Your registration may be transferred to a member of your organization up to 24 hours in advance of the event. Cancellations must be received on or before December 23, 2022 in order to be refunded and will be subject to a US $195.00 processing fee per registrant. No refunds will be made after this date. Cancellations received after this date will create a credit of the tuition (less processing fee) good toward any other EUCI event. This credit will be good for six months from the cancellation date. In the event of non-attendance, all registration fees will be forfeited. In case of conference cancellation, EUCIs liability is limited to refund of the event registration fee only. For more information regarding administrative policies, such as complaints and refunds, please contact our offices at 303-770-8800

Credits

EUCI is accredited by the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) and offers IACET CEUs for its learning events that comply with the ANSI/IACET Continuing Education and Training Standard. IACET is recognized internationally as a standard development organization and accrediting body that promotes quality of continuing education and training.

EUCI is authorized by IACET to offer 0.9 CEUs for this conference.

Upon successful completion of this event, program participants interested in receiving CPE credits will receive a certificate of completion.

Course CPE Credits: 10.5
There is no prerequisite for this conference.
Program Level: Basic
Delivery Method: Group Internet Based
Advanced Preparation: None

EUCI is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be submitted to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors through its web site: www.nasbaregistry.org

 

 

Requirements for Successful Completion of Program

Participants must log in or sign in/out each day and be in attendance for the entirety of the course to be eligible for continuing education credit.

Instructional Methods

Case Studies, Panel Discussions and PowerPoint presentations will be used in the program.

Who Should Attend

Individuals working in the following areas will benefit from attending this event:

• Customer service
• Internet services
• E-business services
• Social media
• Web risk-management
• Contact center management
• Corporate communications
• Web designers, interactive group
• Business planning and information systems
• Strategic planning and performance management

As of December 16, 2021

EUCI considers the safety of all those onsite at event name as our top priority including our attendees, exhibitors, sponsors, and event staff. In these efforts to host a safe and productive event, we pledge to follow all guidelines and mandates set by State and local authorities as well as CDC guidelines.  Please note, these guidelines and mandates may change from time to time.

On-Site Safety Practices Include:

• Acceptable face coveringsrequired of all Attendees at the Event who are not fully vaccinated, or for all participants where required by venue. Participants are responsible for providing their own face coverings.
• Daily self-health screenings for all attendees
• Reminders to socially distance when appropriate, wash your hands often, cover your cough, or sneeze and stay home if you are sick
• Modify gathering and seating areas to allow for appropriate physical distancing
• Attendees will have the option to indicate their comfort level for personal interaction through the use of Green/Yellow/Red stickers displayed on their conference badge.  Unless otherwise indicated with a Green sticker by both attendees, handshakes and other physical contact should be avoided
• Provide access to appropriate first aid personnel and share local resources for pharmacy, urgent care, and hospital

 Prior to arriving at the Event, we encourage each attendee to do the following:

• Visit the Event Website for any updates to our Health & Safety Guidelines
• Familiarize yourself with the Event’s Onsite Terms & Conditions. Acknowledgement and acceptance will be required to pick up your badge onsite.

Event Management has the right to remove or exclude anyone from the event if they do not follow our Health & Safety policies or do not follow Health & Safety instructions set forth by the Event or venue staff.