RNR Consulting was commissioned by the City of Cleveland Division of Water (CWD) to continue supporting the Customer Care and Billing (CC&B) Billing Blitz team Phase II initiatives for the AMI Implementation Project. The consulting activities/services provided were conducted under the direction of CWD Billing, Meter Reading and Customer Account Services Managers. Below is a brief description of the initiatives.

Training and Support on CC&B Procedures and Developing the Business Processes

The following includes the daily activities that constitute training and support and development of business procedures for the CWD Billing, Meter Reading and Customer Accounts Services Departments.

• Reviewed the current procedures and rectified them to match the Division’s requirements and current practices.
• Developed CC&B business procedures to meet the Division’s requirements and existing CWD practices.
• Conducted training sessions on CC&B procedures for the Billing, Meter Reading and Customer Accounts Services Departments.
• Guided and supported employees through procedures related to their areas of functionality.
• Trained on specific billing and Meter Reading Exception errors to help the employees better understand how to resolve errors when encountered in the system.
• Rectified and resolved errors encountered by employees working on correcting pending bills.
• Performed a Quality Assurance Check on the work completed to make sure that the bills were done and billed correctly.
• Ran daily database queries for accounts that fail to meet the High-Low requirement and assigned the work to the Meter Reading Team.

Deliverables:

• Developed a weekly dashboard for reporting the status of the project.
• Developed and maintained daily counts of the Meter Reading employee’s work completed, including the performance of trained Meter Reading employees.
• Business procedure documents outlining CC&B workflow based on the CWD practice.
• Business Procedures Training Handout.

Types of Pending Bills & Accounts Requiring Further Analysis

• Suppressed bills – These are high bills that have been suppressed. The bills were reviewed and adjusted accordingly before being released to the customer.
• Meter Reading High Low Inflow Bills – These are bills that fail to meet the High Low requirement meaning that they are either too high or low; therefore, had to be reviewed and released before the billing window closes. By reviewing these bills prior to the billing window closing, we reduced the number of accounts that become pended bills by over 98%.
• Accounts that required a final to be completed – This includes completing and issuing a final bill to the old owner, activating the account for the new owner and billing the new owner up to the current term.
• WOMO (Water Off Meter Out) - This included accounts that water had been turned off and the meter taken out.
• Meter Change Accounts – Accounts that meters had been changed in the field but the information had not been updated in the system. The information was updated and the accounts were billed using the new meter reads.
• Accounts with different exception errors such as:
  • Start meter read not usable;
  • Accounts that have reached maximum number of times that the system can estimate; and 
  • Accounts with “pending stops” and require to be completed.

Deliverables:

• Developed a weekly dashboard for reporting the status of the project including how many accounts were completed and how many are still pending.
• Resolved Pending Bills.

RETURN TO SERVICE AREA: CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT