RNR Consulting was contracted by the City of Cleveland, Division of Water (CWD) to complete the entry / correction of 60,000 pending bills in the newly implemented Oracle Customer Care and Billing (CC&B) System. In order to accomplish this goal, RNR Consulting partnered with the not-for-profit organization, Youth Opportunities Unlimited and created a 20 person Billing Blitz Team comprised of Cleveland high school and college students. RNR Consulting was responsible for training the temporary employees on the Oracle CC&B System and managing them through the process of correcting the pending bills. The training included:

• Reviewing the “V” Diagram outlining how service is provided by CWD to its customers (This step was conducted to illustrate how the core components of the billing system are connected to each other.)
• Training on how to analyze the meter readings. The meter reading analysis was one of the critical areas emphasized during training. Below are a few examples of what is covered in this section.
  • Identifying a good meter.
  • Identifying a non-progressive meter.
  • Identifying an out-of-order meter, including when there is no alert for the out-of-order.
  • Identifying when an account has been “overbilled” in the legacy system.
  • Identifying when an account has been “under-billed” in the legacy system.
  • When and how to use a billing force to bill the account.
  • Adding reads in the system.
  • Creating a re-read field activity.
• General review and analysis of the account. The temporary employees were trained on how to research accounts in detail before completing a bill. This included researching:
  • Customer contacts to get the history of the account;
  • Field Activities available that verify a certain action or that would enable the employee to make the proper decision on how to correct the account; and
  • Financial history such as past adjustments.
• Training Specific to the Business Processes. This training included reviewing Standard Operating Procedures related to:
  • Finals – Move in Move out.
  • WOMO Procedure – Water off Meter out and abolishing the service point.
  • Completing / Issuing a Final Bill for the WOMO accounts.
  • Fake-out Procedure for removing and installing same meter with a new register (mainly for commercial meters).
  • Cancel / Rebill Procedure.
  • Billing Force Procedure.
  • Start Stop Procedure – Starting new service and Ending or Issuing the old owner with a final bill.

Within three months, the Billing Blitz Team successfully completed and resolved over 40,000 pending bills. 

RETURN TO SERVICE AREA: CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT