Pennsylvania Utility Petitions To Accelerate Start Date For Standard Offer Program Changes Which Include Tripling Fee Charged To Retail Suppliers

Duquesne Light has filed at the Pennsylvania PUC to accelerate the start date of recently adopted changes in its Standard Offer Customer Referral Program (SOP), with such changes including a near-tripling of the fee charged to retail electric suppliers

As previously reported, as part of various SOP changes that were approved as part of Duquesne Light's recent default service proceeding (see story here), Duquesne Light will begin outsourcing administration of the SOP to a third party

Duquesne Light noted that such SOP outsourcing will reduce Duquesne Light's customer service representatives' (CSRs) call handle time by an estimated 90 seconds per applicable call. "At April-May 2019 call volumes, the call handle time reductions would translate to approximately 50-60 hours of saved CSR time each month. As call volumes increase, the corresponding savings potential in April and May 2021 may be significantly higher," Duquesne Light said

Duquesne Light noted the potential for increased call volumes if the current utility termination moratorium expires on March 31, 2021, as set forth in the most recent termination moratorium order

"[T]o improve call center capacity for the anticipated increase in customer call volume resulting from the end of the moratorium on service terminations," Duquesne Light proposes to move up outsourcing of its SOP administration from June 1 to April 1, 2021

Notable is that under the change to an SOP program administered by a third party, Duquesne Light will begin charging retail suppliers $30 per enrollment under the Standard Offer program (due to the higher costs of third-party administration). Currently, retail suppliers are charged $10.28 per enrollment

Under the new outsourced process, Duquesne Light customer service representatives (CSR) would briefly introduce the SOP to customers who call the utility to start or transfer service, or who indicate a high bill concern. Customers who indicate interest in the SOP will be transferred to the company’s third-party vendor. The third-party vendor will then proceed with its portion of the scripting to discuss the SOP in further detail, answer customers’ questions, and enroll interested customers with a participating supplier.

Duquesne Light also provided the final CSR scripts for the SOP program, for the introduction by its own CSRs, and the additional script for the third-party vendor CSRs. See the scripts in this filing

Docket No. P-2016-2543140; P-2021-3024373