The Competitive Edge: Mobile Computing and Deregulation
Collections
Ironically, customer service sometimes requires disconnecting service from delinquent or
past due accounts. Before the automation of mobile devices, the process was labor-intensive
and subject to inconvenience for both the customer and the utility.
In a paper-based system, collections agents would receive an assignment in the morning
with a list of disconnections for that day. Oftentimes, customers would wait until the last
possible time -- the same day as the scheduled shut-off date --to pay their bill.
Unfortunately, payment was typically received afler the crew was dispatched to the
customer premises. While the customer was at the utility paying the bill, the field
representative was at the customer site shutting-off the power. More than an unfortunate
breakdown in communication, this process had an untoward effect on the utility’s ability
to provide customer service to other customers. First, complaints from the disconnected
customers tied up customer call centers. Second, a crew needed to again be dispatched to
the customer’s site to turn-on the power.
With automation, this situation can be remedied through an immediate communication to
the field, eliminating false power shut-offs, reducing the number of irate phone calls to
customer call centers, and freeing field crews to tend to paying customers. Costs are
reduced for the utility, and customer satisfaction improves.
Mobile Computing Use Profile B
A midwest utility recently completed a six-month trial of a mobile computing device in
its collections department. In warm-weather months, the utility employees a dozen or
more collection agents to visit delinquent accounts, and when appropriate, order service
to be disconnected.
Credit collectors were assigned routes and schedules using paper forms, which were
either handed out or faxed to each person. At the end of a day of collections, these agents
would tabulate the status of each account they visited on paper and pass the information
to clerks who would input the results into a customer information database.
This system proved time-consuming and inconvenient for both the utility and its
customers. At times, customers would pay their account balance after service was
interrupted. But depending on when that information was entered into the database, it
could be up to 24 hours before a second technician was dispatched to restore service.
Using a mobile computing solution, “credit collectors can send radio updates to the
database in a matter of three seconds,” according to a member of the utility IS staff.
Since service is synchronized with payment status, a crew can be dispatched immediately
to restore service once payment is received
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