Utility
company Scottish Water said it has saved more than £18m since
rolling out a £7m online system from Oracle to improve customer
service less than a year ago.
Utilities and
other companies from the UK, Russia, China and the US are
considering using the Scottish Water project, known as Promise to
Resolution, as a model, according to Oracle and IT services partner
Celerant Consulting.
Oracle’s
e-Business Suite software, which underpins the initiative, enables
the call centre to deal with customer calls much more efficiently,
Scottish Water said.
Oracle’s
TeleService software connects directly into the supplier’s Field
Service software which, in turn, connects to more than 200 field
staff equipped with laptops.
The system allows
customer advisers to tap into an online database containing records
of customers' previous calls, water service problems in the area
and the status of existing maintenance and repair projects.
This means more
calls can be dealt with immediately - helping to cut the costs of
dealing with repeat calls from frustrated customers, said Cheryl
Black, customer service director at Scottish Water.
The company is on
track to meet targets of 85% of calls to be answered first time,
compared with 53% before the programme was developed, she said.
“Customers like
the appointment system because they know exactly when to expect a
visit,” Black said. “The field operatives turn up in time, they
have the right information on hand and they see the job to
completion. It means they deliver for the customer and they deliver
for the business.”
The efficiency
savings have already added up to around £18m, Black said. “Our
regulator has set us targets of cutting operating costs by 40% by
2005/2006,” she said. “The savings from this one project within
Scottish Water has gone some way to achieving that target.”
The £7m investment
by Scottish Water was divided into £2m to buy the technology, £1.5m
to implement the new system and £3.5m on business change
management. This included new efficient ways of working; training
for staff, redesigning business processes, eliminating
inefficiencies, such as repeat calls and doing work in a planned
method rather than a reactive method.