AWWA ACE56338

In accordance with the Greater Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW) Strategic Business Plan, GCWW management wanted to determine the technologies and business process changes required to move from their current state of a "GCWW department friendly" customer service function to a "customer friendly" customer service function. GCWW had eleven telephone numbers published in the local telephone directory, requiring customers to have some knowledge of how GCWW operated in order to identify the correct telephone number to call. This resulted in customers being transferred to many departments within GCWW in order to get phone inquires answered. In addition, GCWW wanted to expand the services offered to customers by making a one-time technology investment as opposed to an operational cost increase to staff seven additional Call Center agents. Included in this effort to improve customer service was a desire to improve Call Center performance measures. In January 2000, GCWW hired Deloitte Consulting to perform an assessment of the current Call Center tools and operations which focused on three areas: technology; processes; and, people. GCWW rated very well in some areas (training, coaching and feedback) but needed improvement in others (service view by customer, payment view by customer and accessibility of information to customer). By April 2000, GCWW Call Center Management along with Deloitte Consulting was ready to begin implementing some of the recommendations resulting from the assessment as approval was received from GCWW senior management. The first set of recommendations to be implemented include: consolidation of the 11 customer phone numbers to 1 phone number; design, development and implementation of an intranet based on-line procedures manual that provides the Call Center Representatives with all needed information to now answer ALL calls to GCWW instead of calls being answered via the previous 11 GCWW departments; implementation of an Interactive Voice Response Unit (IVR); implementation of Computer Telephony Integration (CTI); installation and configuration of Call Center Wall boards & PC Ticker Tapes with real-time Call Center performance statistics, water main break information and other important Call Center information; implementation of Customer Call Back; implementation of an Automated Dialer that calls delinquent accounts warning them of shut-off and provides instruction on how to pay bills to avoid shut-off; and, installation and configuration of a survey application in which GCWW can survey customers and collect responses via the IVR.

Product Details

Edition:

Vol. - No.

Published:

06/16/2002

Number of Pages:

4

File Size:

1 file , 1.4 MB