insight
Advanced Customer Service
Transforming Water Sector Customer Service Operations by Lynne Powers
Often the water sector has treated customers with a “one-size-fits-all” meter-to-pay cycle. A number of factors are causing utilities to break this paradigm and move toward a more customer-centric approach. These factors include:
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Customers’ technological sophistication and growing expectations
Ways to Transform
Transformation of customer service operations focuses on news ways • Changes in customer interactions due to to bring even greater efeconomic downturn ficiencies while also improving • Retiring IT staff who will no longer be able to service. Examples include: support legacy systems • Expanding payment options
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Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) / Meter Data Management (MDM)
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Water conservation and reclamation efforts
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Changing rate structures to support increasing infrastructure and regulatory costs with decreased water consumption
Using AMI data to identify accounts with questionable usage patterns
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Identifying why customers call and addressing the root cause of the most time-consuming issues
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Expanding customer communication options (e.g., web, iPhone/ Android apps, texting, and social media)
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Using GIS in the contact center
Transforming customer service operations is a multi-step process:
Step 1: Understand your customers
Use customer data from your systems to understand customer behaviors, choices, and expectations.
Step 2: Expand or strengthen customer
service options Provide more options for service, communication, billing, and payments to meet changing and complex customer expectations.
Step 3: Create operational efficiencies
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A Look at the Many Customer Payment Options
Using automated outbound dialing to notify and remind non-pay customers Improving service appointment management capabilities Rethinking billing and customer communications in light of conservation efforts and consumption patterns
Using the Steps to Transform
Example: Expanded Payment Options
Utilities can use the step-by-step process above as a framework to Focus on quality and efficient business processes explore aspects of customer service they wish to improve. The following example shows how to apply the framework and move toward more by creating cost-effective practices and a cont. on page 11 continuous improvement culture. www.ema-inc.com Issue 1, 2013
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