The City of Winnipeg’s Water and Waste Department has completed the implementation of Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to improve customer service, expand customer billing options and streamline revenue management. The implementation replaced a 38-year old billing application that was becoming costly to maintain.
The city worked with Oracle Consulting on the implementation, which met the city’s schedule and budget expectations. With Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, the Water and Waste Department has near real-time access to customer and billing information. The department also now has the flexibility to introduce new programs and offers, such as e-commerce options, to meet customer expectations for convenience, the company said.
Further, Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, along with a Pitney Bowes electronic document print solution, has improved customer communication by automating letter creation and improving the customer bill format.
The company added that Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing integrates with a number of third party systems, including the Water and Waste Department’s general ledger, meter reading system and payment processing system, resulting in further efficiencies.
In addition, the updated application is expected to help the Water and Waste Department scale to meet projected population growth over the next 25 years.
Derek Osborne, project manager, utility information systems, City of Winnipeg, said: “The City of Winnipeg had seen severe constraints with our legacy billing application, and we needed a scalable, reliable system to manage our customer service and billing for water and wastewater services.
“By partnering with Oracle, we were able to quickly and smoothly replace our customer information and billing system with no issues or disruptions to our customers. Now we have the application we need to improve service delivery and offer new programs and flexibility to our customers.”
Quentin Grady, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities, said: “Public utilities of all sizes are focused on delivering reliable service and assisting customers with high quality customer care and flexible billing options. Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing helps utilities like the City of Winnipeg meet these goals while maximising revenue, increasing efficiency and minimising total cost of ownership.”
