Consumers Energy Wins Award for CIS/CRM Excellence -ACE- for ENERGYprism Application.

Energy Editors/Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

WELLESLEY, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 20, 2004

Nexus Energy Software, a leading provider of Web and call center customer service solutions to energy utilities, announced today that Consumers Energy of Michigan has received the ACE Award for Best Residential Customer Care Initiative for its innovative support of customer bill inquiries on its Web site, as well as for improvements to bill inquiry responses in its customer service center. The ACE award, sponsored by the EPN Utility CIS/CRM Consortium and Harts Energy Markets Magazine, was presented at the annual CIS Conference in Miami on May 4. Sheena Taborn, operations & technical director for customer service at Consumers, accepted the award.

Consumers Energy's customer Web portal and customer service desktop systems use the Nexus ENERGYprism(TM) Customer Care suite of applications to respond to inquiries, such as the causes for bill change, comparisons to similar households and ways to reduce energy bills.

"Having received entries from utilities based in Australia, Europe, Africa, Asia, the United States and Canada, Consumers Energy's award deserves high praise, and clearly reflects their continued dedication to providing superior customer service," said John Hoggard of the Energy Planner's Network Utility CIS/CRM Consortium (www.enerplanning.com), which organized the awards.

In a recent conference presentation, Harvey Michaels, CEO of Nexus, remarked: "We believe that the Consumers example proves our basic beliefs that improved customer service and empowerment can co-exist with cost efficient service. We wish to thank Consumers Energy, an innovative, progressive utility, for teaming with us to help prove this belief in a live customer environment."

About Consumers Energy

Consumers Energy, the principal subsidiary of CMS Energy, provides natural gas and electricity to more than 6 million of Michigan's nearly 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties. It is the country's 13th largest investor-owned electric company and the 10th largest investor-owned natural gas utility.

About Nexus Energy Software

Nexus Energy Software, formed in 1997, offers leading applications and solutions support to enable and enhance the operations of energy companies in the areas of network planning, load management, settlement and customer services.

Nexus' ENERGYprism(R) applications and underlying analytic engine deliver useful, personalized bill content, including bill change analysis, appliance level energy costs, benchmarks, and analysis of options, on client web portals, in call centers and on paper bills. ENERGYprism enhances customer service quality and efficiency by helping customers better understand and manage their bills, encouraging customer self-service and e-billing, and increasing first call resolution. ENERGYprism integrates easily with existing CIS and CRM systems.

Nexus' Energy Vision Enterprise(R) solutions support utility operating processes that require estimation and aggregation of customer meter and billing data, including enhanced T&D network planning and management, complex billing and settlement systems.

Nexus' solutions, in use by more than 70 energy companies worldwide, can be viewed at: www.nexusenergy.com.