1. Going the Extra Mile in Customer Service
Presented by:
Jamie Cagle - Billing Manager City Of Asheville
David Melton - Interim Director of Water Resources City of Asheville

2. Going the Extra Mile in Customer Service
Utility Billing
Billing Framework
Bi-monthly billing
Bills due 20 days after mail date
21 days after mail date account is past due - past due notice mailed
15 days past due, account moves to disconnect list

3. Going the Extra Mile in Customer Service
Can we do more to help customers maintain service?
Courtesy Call Program imagined.
Customer Service Staff led multi-departmental project to develop and implement the Courtesy Call Program.

4. Going the Extra Mile in Customer Service
I didn’t get a notice!
I don’t have any water!
Why couldn’t you call me!
These and more are things we hear from customers when their service is disconnected for nonpayment

5. Could it work?
We realized that the city already uses a mass notification system called Everbridge for emergencies and water outages.
Our IT department assessed Everbridge and our billing software Munis and concluded that it they could work together to produce an automated call to our customers.

6. A multi-department project to implement a Courtesy Call program was established
The players IT
CAPE- Communication and Public engagement
Customer Service
Legal
The winners
Our Customers
Our department

7. Things to consider
We put a post out to NC Listserv through the NC school of government to find out the practices of other cities
Develop a testing and training plan for customer service
Decide what time of day to make the call where it will be most likely to reach the customer and not overwhelm Customer service staff
At what point of delinquency should we make the call

8. The message
This message is sent out on an auto dialer. Our legal department was very specific about what can and cannot be said on the message. This is our finished message after it was cleared as appropriate by legal-
“This is an important message from the City of Asheville’s Water Resources Department. Payment on your utility account is past due. You may call to make a payment over the phone or to reach a Customer Service Representative during office hours. You may also pay online at Please act now to maintain your ability to receive water service.”

9. A strong IT lead is needed for this project
Implementation
Implementation took about four months start to finish
A strong IT lead is needed for this project
The customer service reps who administer the calls had to complete a training program with Everbridge
The most difficult part was the conversion of the file created in Munis and converting it so that the data can be recognized in Everbridge

10. How it works
We use the same process in Munis, our billing software that we use to generate our cut off list each day. We produce a list of accounts that are a certain number of days late
We export the list from Munis as a CSV text file and upload it to Everbridge where it is converted to a database
Everbridge sends out the message to all of the phone numbers and addresses in the database
Everbridge can determine if the message was delivered or ignored. The software will try to contact the customer until it reaches 3 unsuccessful tries, or the customer chooses to confirm or ignore the message.

11. What went wrong
Our billing system had a lot of outdated phone numbers. Your calls are only effective if they reach the intended customer! We continue to update numbers when we speak to a customer. We are still looking at ways to encourage customers to update their accounts.
There was a major setback for us when our City made a change from Microsoft to Google one month after implementation. Much of our process had to be reworked.
We had to adjust the timing of the call several times. When we first began we were inundated with calls right after the message went out.

12. Success!
Courtesy calls go out daily at 2:00pm.
Our parameters are set to look for bills that are seven days late.
Everbridge produces a report that can be accessed by Customer Service Representatives that shows the account, what number was dialed, and if the call was received, rejected, or sent to voic .
We record data daily that gives us statistics on bill count, delinquencies, courtesy calls and cut offs. This allows us to see the entire life cycle of a days bills and helps us measure how effective the program is.

13. The results
Our customers are appreciative to receive the call.
Great PR for our department.
Our cuts for non payment have reduced drastically. We have gone from a max of 60 daily, to an average of 20 to 30 cuts per day.
Less time and fuel spent by meter services turning meters off and on. They can focus their efforts on other projects.
We have done something good for our customers!