Scottish Hydro is an integrated generator, distributor and retail supplier of electricity. It decided to sell electricity in other ‘second tier’ areas of the UK, outside of its own network footprint. It established a project to set up billing systems and operating infrastructure required to leverage the legal, commercial and technical frameworks put in place by the industry to support competition, generating new revenue. Although Scottish Hydro had some goods retailing expertise, it had not run outbound customer acquisition campaigns before, and required expertise on propositions and approaches to customer acquisition. David provided expertise on direct marketing, particularly approaches to outbound, telephone-based sales campaigns.
David first identified high-level options for providing an outbound sales engine, for example establishing its own in-house telemarketing capability, or outsourcing or a blend of both. David provided decision-making support to enable his client to select the most appropriate option. Mainly on the grounds of speed, less upfront investment and less risk of developing an infrastructure that might later prove redundant, outsourcing was selected.
David prepare a work specification, which was sent to a number of outbound telesales specialist in order to solicit proposals and obtain bottom up cost estimates. From these proposals, a supplier was chosen. In parallel, David worked with marketers and IT specialist working on billing and order taking systems to develop clear proposals.
David’s work put in place the platform from which Hydro could pursue its business objectives to acquire new customers, with a fast, lower risk response to the opportunities created by re-regulation.