C’mon Back…. C’mon Back…..

“All of us thank you all for the help and unbelievably quick response”. Hearing this is like music to our ears. A client of ours had a major system / hardware failure last week. Their bills needed to go out the next day. Fortunately, they had a local consultant who was familiar with their system, and they had us ready to work with their local consultant. When our client called us, they weren’t concerned about the “solution we provide”; they were concerned about the outcome/result of our efforts. They (and we) were successful because they had the necessary resources available to them quickly.

As a manager, you are bombarded with information about all the things you should be doing to prepare for every conceivable threat. It’s easy to put off or gloss over disaster recovery planning. Coming up in my next few posts will be a ‘top ten’ list of things you should be doing even if disaster never strikes. Number one on that list is and always will be: have a reliable backup.

I know what you’re thinking. You purchased a really nice backup solution last year, and you’re in great shape. Great. Is someone in your organization actually monitoring the success or failure of your backup processes? Daily? When was the last time you actually recovered your data from a backup? If you needed to recover from two days ago, could you consistently reproduce your manual efforts since then? Now that you’ve turned on your heating system for the winter, is your server environment temperature controlled? Are multiple copies of your recent backups offsite?

If you can honestly answer all those questions, you are almost alone based on my anecdotal experience over 30+ years. I will swap unbelievable “war stories” with anyone out there. Having a reliable backup and having the resources to use that backup is not optional.

Every Moment Counts

Unpaid furlough. Although no employee likes to have an unpaid day of work, it has become a reality for many municipalities around the United States. This is why every moment counts.

I find myself guilty of being stuck in my ways every now and again. I do our billing the same way each month. I have my steps that I follow and they never steer me wrong. What I do tend to forget is that technology and software are constantly changing. The changes are for the better and help speed things along. So I in turn, try to encourage myself to step back and think outside the routine steps. What are those time-saving features that have been released that I’m not putting to good use? We already went to outsourcing our statement printing and E-Bill / E-Pay. I learned that my billing reports are a breeze now that one set of prompts on my reports chains them together so they run one right after the next.

So think about it. What takes you the most time in your daily, weekly, and monthly procedures? Are there ways you can speed up some of those processes? Call your utility billing software techs or sales reps and ask them if there is something that you might be able to do differently. They’ll be your greatest resources in becoming more efficient. Over the long-term, you’ll save time and money, and you’ll enjoy your work more.

Frequently Asked Questions

I’d like to think that every time I call for customer service I’m going to have my question answered quickly and on the spot. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this. So, in the spirit of good customer relations I try to do the same when someone calls with a question. Now granted, I know I’m not going to be able to answer everything that comes through, so I know my limits and quickly pass the customer on to someone who can answer the question. Recently I’ve been wondering how I could speed up the answering process and if our clients sometimes experience the same problems.

There are the questions that you know are coming and could answer them without even opening the account information. Then there are questions that take a little more time and effort. These are the questions for which I’d like to improve my customer service. Usually there is some sort of account research involved and a little bit of problem-solving to figure out what went wrong. Once you’ve got it figured out, you give yourself a little pat on the back for solving the mystery. Then you continue on with your next customer or your next task and forget all about it.
Although these questions might be infrequent, you know they are coming. I’ve decided to stop reinventing the wheel. With my new cheat sheets I’m creating as Word documents and writing my own help in the customizable help screen in our Utility Billing Software application. So instead of just giving myself a pat on the back, I’m going to increase my efficiency and help myself.

 

New Year’s 2010 prediction:

In 1969, I ordered radial tires for my new car. Since most people had never even heard of radial tires, I was accused of being nuts. Over the holiday season in 1970, I ran into my aunt and informed her that someday everyone would have their own computer. Since we were still entrenched in the punch-card era, she really thought I was nuts. In 1984, I bought a Saab with a turbocharger and fuel injection. Most people thought I was nuts, and indeed, I should have waited a few years… It goes on. We were early adopters of Novell as a server operating system in the mid-80’s. We were early adopters for Citrix as a thin-client and remote access solution in the early 90’s. In 1995, I jumped on the FoxPro bandwagon for about 2 years (OK, so even I’m not perfect!). We were early adopters of SQL Server. Since it’s the end of the ‘00’s and we’re about to move to the teen years of the century, here is my earth-shattering prediction for the future:

The U S Postal Service will cease to exist, or go the way of the telegram. UPS and FedEx will continue to thrive. It will take a while, but all I see coming from the USPS is vastly more complexity for bulk mailers, higher prices and poorer service. The only thing keeping it alive is junk mail. In the Netherlands, most people have already (easily) opted out of receiving junk mail, which will undoubtedly happen here once we intelligently allow the same service. What will replace your mailed bills?

At some point in time, every utility will want to present their current and historical bills via email and online. As the cost for this service goes down and the cost for mailing and handling goes up, you should accept the inevitable and plan for the future. Or maybe I’m nuts.
Have a Happy 2010.

Automate It!

Why do unnecessary extra work? If someone else is willing to do something for you, then there really isn’t any reason to do it twice. I’m sure your organization receives numerous checks from different online payment services such as Metavante, Check Free, BA Merchant Services, First Data and Fisery. You receive the payment as a check (probably without a remittance stub) and process it as you would any other payment. Just think of how much easier your payment processing would be if entering these checks only took a few clicks and everything was done.

In an e-mail from a check payment processing company to one of our clients, it was stated that there were over 4,000 mutual customers and that in one month almost 2,000 individual checks were mailed. Just think of all the time and money that will be saved if you have all that information transmitted electronically! Think of all the time and frustration of processing those payments you’d save if your organization received all those checks in an electronic file format that can be processed through a file import into your software. All it takes is a few e-mails or phone calls to those payment processing companies that send you checks each month and a call to your software provider to find out how to get the process to import the file. The best part is it is a win-win situation for everyone involved. Oh, and you also save all those trees by going paper-free.

The Economist’s Briefing on California’s Water Wars

The October 24th – 30th2009 issue of The Economist had an article titled “Of farms, folks, and fish.” Being a Southern California native, I’m always intrigued by all things related to water in California. I remember as a kid watching the installation of the Morongo Basin Pipeline down the street adjacent to our neighbor’s house. I was amazed that all that water was coming from hundreds of miles away and going to go under our street to provide water to our dry desert. According to the Mojave Water Agency website, since water began to flow through the 71-mile pipeline it has continued to serve nearly 60,000 people and businesses over 455 square miles of the High Desert. But where does that water come from? It comes from the East Branch of the California Aqueduct, which begins at the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta and is ground zero of the California water wars.

Since California is the world’s eighth-largest economy, water rights will continue to be a hot topic until either more water magically appears or everyone is happy. According to this article, the latter of these two seems possible, but it could come too late for some farmers. The outcome of how California’s water problems can be fixed is being anxiously awaited by not only Californians and the economies that rely on California, but all the water districts in California that have been affected by water conservation efforts.

Technology for its own sake

I recently had an interesting discussion with one of the well-known leaders in his market, Erik Amelink of teleWORKS. Buying into an IVR solution is not about technology; it’s about providing better service for your customers and leveraging your staff’s time. Yeah, the technology is very cool, but it’s really about eliminating some of the most tedious and unpleasant parts of your workflow, so that you can make more intelligent use of your resources.

As I discussed in another post, do you really WANT to be in the business of calling people about their delinquent account? Do your customers really WANT to be called by someone in your office, or is this something that both parties would do better by being automated?

A significant part of employee turnover can be attributed to doing unpleasant tasks like delinquency reminders. As the technology improves, those organizations that can communicate with their customers in more ways and eliminate repetitive, time-consuming work will be able to respond more quickly to their leadership and their consumers.

Are you getting through to your customers?

How many times have you personally opened a bill and tossed everything but the bill and the reply envelope?   Every utility has to communicate information to their customers.  It may be about a planned outage, a rate increase, promoting conservation, or any variety of topics.  Customers usually can’t afford to disregard the bill, but they can disregard the rest of the information that’s been included. Believe it or not, there is a simple solution:  write the most important information you need to communicate on the bill itself.  By using targeted messages to reach certain customers you’re more likely to catch their attention.  In both printed and e-mailed bills, you’ll be able to put that message front and center.  In an article titled, The Right Stuff: When and How to Make Bill Inserts Effective, in Electric Light & Power, writer Betsy Loeff talks about “to stuff or not to stuff”.  Sure, there will be inserts you want to include with the statements, but sometimes it could be more sensible to include a line or two on the statement.  Just think; your customers will be more likely to read the information that has a direct effect on their service and you’ll be saving a little money by not including an insert about that specific topic. Hyperlink: The Right Stuff

Clean Water for All?

It may not mean much to the developed world, but inventor Dean Kamen (of Segway fame) has come up with a way to provide clean water to remote and underdeveloped areas. 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/130735

It’s not cheap, but it works.

 

What Business are you in?

Back in our early days (1976 to be exact), we hired a wise gentleman at the end of his career who helped us out a great deal.  One of the valuable lessons I learned was to ask “what business are you in?”.  At that point in time, we were trying to be all things to all people, and spreading our expertise too thin.  This is the single most important question that you need to ask yourself about your organization, which may not even be a for-profit business.  In addition to all the rules you work with, there is probably some overriding business process or decision-making process that can help you define your organization.  Sometimes this is called a ‘core competency’, but I tend to look at it more from the point of view of answering that one simple question.

For the past 30 years, if someone contacts us and asks if we can automate the scheduling for their long-haul trucking fleet, it’s pretty easy to say, no, we can’t do that for you.  If a client asks us to upgrade the operating systems on their computers, we can also say no, we’re not in that business.  By the same token, it can be really illuminating to put your decision-making processes through the same filter.  For example, what if a customer calls and asks if you do plumbing or electrical repairs?  You may have the expertise in-house to do that, but for many very good reasons, may want to decline.  On the other hand, if your business revolves around installing energy-reducing appliances, you may answer that question differently.   It may be that your organization is missing out on some opportunities that will also make your customers happier.

There is even another way that asking “what business am I in?” can be useful.  For example, I have worked with more than one public utility billing office who, in addition to their primary job of CRM and billing, are really in the Delinquency Processing business.   All of their efforts (and much of their revenue) revolves around collecting late charges.   One utility was actually HAPPY when someone didn’t pay their bill; indeed, the entire organization was moved to action over that.  While I didn’t personally agree with the philosophy, it would have been very helpful had I understood the focus from the beginning of the project.

The crux of all this is simply to encourage you to understand your own business processes in relation to your stated (or unstated) goals, and make sure they are in alignment.

Photo Credit jhoweaa