In the world of utilities, getting customers to pay the bill while providing imperative information to the customer about outstanding charges continues to be the primary objective. Vocantas (News - Alert), a leading provider of IVR solutions, offers a solution designed for utilities and call centers that reduces customer service costs and boosts customer satisfaction by automating routine service requests, making skilled resources more readily available to manage customer issues, and improves account delinquencies through automated bill collection with instant payment options.

Using an outbound and inbound IVR with advanced speech recognition capabilities, Utilities OnCall IVR enables service providers to provide 24/7 customer service for account data, bill payments and meter reading updates; an outbound messaging service to inform customers of unpaid accounts; and produces updates and outage notifications within specific geographic areas and to key demographics. This, of course, lessens the burden on inbound customer service agents and field service.

This ideal IVR-bill payment combination came to fruition eight years ago when Vocantas entered an arrangement with Cogsdale Solutions, a provider of utility software solutions to utilities and local governments. While Cogsdale performed basic tasks such as collecting metering information, generating complex billing information, and managing cash receipts and financial accounting components, the company wanted to provide different levels of service beyond presenting a utility bill every month.

Thus, Cogsdale turned to Vocantas, which offered a cost-effective, easy and flexible method to extend its product reach for IVR and build out the IVR functionality related to Cogsdale’s utility product offering. Now boasting 350 customers all over the U.S., Cogsdale provides to its customers a Web-based product to view bills, check service activity and make payments, as well as a cost-effective, voice-enabled and phone-based utility service.

Utilities OnCall is a “cost-effective method to allow customers greater self-service access,” Kevin Clancey, vice president of Business Development at Cogsdale Solutions, told TMCnet. For instance, as described by Clancey, through outbound collection messaging, the utility can send a list of customers about to have their power cut off due to a late payment, and export the list out of Vocantas to provide automatic notifications to customers. This, in turn, enables utilities to reduce and manage delinquencies and can increase customer access to automated bill payments by 320 percent.

For example, for a customer looking to check account payment history, the customer is prompted via the IVR to the account menu. Once the customer provides his or her account number, the system queries the database to retrieve the most recent account history as well as payment activity. The system announces the last payment made to the account and continues with subsequent payments until the caller receives the desired information.

For a power outage, the IVR solution prompts the customer for this option. The system then narrows the choices in the outage menu and queries the database for current outages. The system then provides the customer with up-to-date, specific outage location information. Meanwhile, this allows for customer service representatives to tend to more complex, customer-centric issues that will more than likely filter through the service line during an outage.

Core features of the Vocantas-powered Utilities OnCall solution also include meter reading, consumption history, corporate information, agent assistance, detailed usage reports and database integration. Add-on enhancements include fax-back capabilities, custom reporting, text-to-speech, and a watchdog monitoring system.

Tammy Wolf is a TMCnet web editor. She covers a wide range of topics, including IP communications and information technology. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell