Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006 05 08 Regular 302 City Utility Billing COMMISSION AGENDA ITEM 302 Consent Informational Public Hearing Regular X May 8. 2006 Regular Meeting MGR/DEPT. Authorization REQUEST: City Manager advising the City Commission of the status of the City's efforts regarding evaluation of the operations of the City's Utility Billing Department. PURPOSE: This agenda item is needed to advise the City Commission of the status of the City's efforts regarding evaluation of the operations of the City's Utility Billing Department. CONSIDERATIONS: On April 10, 2006 the City Manager advised the City Commission that he had arranged for a Peer Review of the City's Customer Service and Billing Policies and Procedures with the Orlando Utilities Commission as part of a staff evaluation audit of the City's Utility Billing/Customer Service function to be completed as follows: STEP I: Problem Recognition. STEP 2: Evaluation and Data Gathering. STEP 3: Resolution Strategy. STEP 4: Implementation, Goal Setting and Training. STEP 5: On-Going Follow-Up. Following is a summary of our efforts to date: Staff has identified potential problem areas and gathered related data to assist us in further evaluation and resolution. Staff contacted and met with representatives from the Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) on April 27, 2006 to assess their operations and procedures and determine how these procedures may be useful to the City. OUC is regarded in the industry as being a leader in utility billing operations. Several items resulted from this initial meeting: 1. It was noted that OUC cut-offs run approximately 4% of customers compared to 3% for the City of Winter Springs. 2. OUC evaluated our written procedures regarding billing, payment, cut-off, etc. and opined that our procedures were sufficient and actually "very good." 3. OUC offered insight as to several additional practices (that they currently employ) that may be useful to the City. Staff is investigating these items in regard to practicality, ability to interface with our computer system, cost, etc. and will include the results of this investigation in its forthcoming report to the Commission. These practices include: a. OUC utilizes a menu-driven automated phone system to answer many routine calls/questions from customers. This system includes an option to speak to a live operator. Specific standards and expectations are in place to ensure prompt and timely answering of calls that default to a live operator. OUC also has in place sufficient staff to further ensure compliance wit these standards. b. OUC practices "call monitoring" (with a remote E- Talk system) of customer calls to evaluate and maintain quality assurance of calls. c. OUC segments call centers by call type, e.g., collections, payments arrangements, cut-offs, and complaints. d. OUC contracted with Equifax to perform an evaluation of their collections procedures. e. OUC assigns exclusive billing cycles to specific staff members. OUC feels that. this practice enables those staff members to have more familiarity with that particular cycle's customers and also gives them a sense of "ownership" ofthat particular cycle. f. OUC utilizes a company know as TeleVox to assist with collection of past due customer payments. This system functions basically as follows: OUC sends a periodic list of past due accounts (prior to cut-off) to Tele Vox who then follow up with a "reminder/courtesy" call to the customer advising them of their past due status - prior to cut-off. OUC advises that this service has reduced cut-offs from approximately 9% to approximately 4%. OUC further advises that statistics indicate that 72% of customers contacted via this system subsequently pay their bills. This system is for residential customers only. g. OUC is currently testing an automated meter reading program for multi-family units that sends meter reads to OUC via its computer network system. h. OUC's computer system contains "statistical tracking capabilities" that provides and maintains payment history for each of its customers. This enables OUC to assign internal "credit ratings" to each of its customers. This rating is then used to determine when and if payment extensions are approved, cut-offs are implemented, etc. At this point, staffwill continue to evaluate the suggestions offered by oue as well as other relevant data for potential implementation. We will then bring back the results along with recommendations for implementation and associated costs to the City Commission. However, we are proceeding immediately with Customer Service Training and have procured two independent sources for this purpose: 1. OUC has offered to provide us with their customer service trainers to train our staff. 2. We have procured the services of George Colombo to provide additional customer service training to our staff. FUNDING: Costs to be determined dependent upon the level of implementation. RECOMMENDATION: This item is presented at this point to provide the City Commission with the status of staff s efforts to date and future plans, and to afford the City Commission the opportunity to provide comments. A TT ACHMENTS: None. COMMISSION ACTION: