I've been mentoring two junior auditors here in St. Louis and struggling with how to teach pattern recognition for billing errors. They can follow our checklist procedures fine, but miss the subtle stuff that comes with experience. How do you folks approach training new team members to develop that 'gut feeling' when something doesn't look right on a utility bill? I'm working mostly with Ameren Missouri accounts, so lots of commercial time-of-use schedules.
How do you teach new auditors to spot billing errors?
Great question Pam. With Indianapolis Power & Light bills, I start my trainees on the most common errors first - demand ratchet calculations and power factor penalties. I make them manually verify every calculation for their first 50 accounts. Tedious, but they start seeing patterns. Then I give them accounts where I've already found errors and see if they can spot them blind.
I do something similar with APS bills here in Phoenix. The key is making them understand the tariff structure inside and out before they start auditing. I spend a full week just on rate schedule interpretation - no actual bill review yet. They hate it at first but thank me later when they can spot a misapplied rate schedule from across the room.
Here in Pittsburgh with Duquesne Light, I've found success using 'error libraries' - collections of bills with known issues that I use for training. Each junior auditor has to work through 100+ examples before touching live client accounts. Takes about 6 months but the error detection rate goes way up.
That's brilliant Walt. I might steal that idea for my Duke Energy training program. The hardest part I find is teaching them to question everything, even when the utility says it's right. Had a trainee accept a $12,000 overcharge last month because 'the utility wouldn't make that big of a mistake.' Wrong!
Derek, that's the biggest challenge right there. Here in Tulsa with PSO, I tell my trainees that utilities are staffed by humans and humans make mistakes. Period. I make them document every discrepancy, no matter how small. Nine times out of ten it's nothing, but that tenth time pays for the whole engagement.
The psychological aspect is huge. In Philadelphia with PECO, I've seen too many junior auditors intimidated by utility personnel during dispute resolution. I role-play these conversations with them beforehand. They need to be confident in their findings and able to explain the math clearly to utility reps who may not want to admit errors.
Phil makes an excellent point. Here with PG&E in Fresno, I actually bring trainees to dispute meetings when possible. Let them see how the process works in real time. Nothing beats live experience for building confidence. Plus the utility folks get used to seeing our people, which helps with future disputes.