The challenge

The primary point of interaction between energy and utility companies and their customers is their customer care and billing services. It is also at this point that companies can stand out from the crowd by offering high quality responses, short waiting times and personalised messaging. Here companies can reduce their customers’ costs by minimising the time between consumption and payment, as well as shaping more relevant products based on data and insights from past interactions. Both companies and their customers desire a frictionless, customer centric, cost effective customer care and billing service.

To achieve this vision, companies are having to face complex challenges and requirements:

  • Facilitating a smarter generation: We are entering the era of the connected home. The smart meter, micro-generation and electric vehicles are transforming the Utilities sector. Smart meters enable a nearly instant assessment of consumption, as well as the ability to control supply to the premise and ultimately to demand-side supply. Companies need real-time billing services to match this evolution.
  • Fierce market conditions: Companies are increasingly faced with new challenges: market competition, tough financial conditions, changes to the regulatory framework, and the need to cut costs and improve margins.
  • Obstructive systems: Companies often face disruptive internal organisation and system changes. On top of this, many companies are working with multiple inherited legacy systems: systems that cannot offer the flexibility and efficiency needed to capture market trends whilst satisfying customer expectations.

The challenge is to find a balance between an efficient customer service and billing process that will still allow for changes with the minimal amount of interruption. To make this transformation, utilities will need to address CS&B in two key ways.

Improved customer satisfaction, reduced costs, improved revenues.

CGI is in the unique position of having developed Mass Data Billing (MDB) for Utilities. It provides an answer to all of these issues and opens your organisation up to a huge range of further business opportunities, whilst minimising risk and operational upheaval. MDB supports our clients’ core business by interacting directly on their behalf with customers and other parties to drive efficiencies and accuracy in real-time billing.

We offer a pay-as-you-use service which vastly reduces capital expenditure (up to 80%), reduces IT TCO (up to 50%) and streamlines business processes for optimal flexibility. It has been designed with the end user in mind and can be delivered as an end-to-end managed service or modules can be used as tactical additions to existing systems.

Many Utility companies are also looking to diversify into new lines-of-business with brand new products and services not traditionally offered, to capture greater wallet share from their customers and grow top-line revenues, such as telecommunications services. This tends to require the investment in new customer care and billing systems which are silo’d, and often do not deliver a single consolidated bill, leading to inconsistent financial relationships with customers. With CGI this challenge is addressed and regardless of the new line of business being introduced, we can effectively and easily deliver a consolidated customer care and consistent financial relationship with your customer base.

With MDB in place, Utilities organisations will have complete freedom to define and win in their chosen markets:

  • Combines traditional billing with real-time high volume transaction management
  • Integrates with smart-metering, legacy utilities, and none-traditional products
  • Creates a single invoice for ‘multi’ package offerings and new lines of business
  • Leverages current and legacy systems to ensure maximum ROI e.g. SAP IS-U
  • Reduces time-to-market for new products
  • Creates a consistent customer experience
  • Efficient financial reconciliation
  • Decreases revenue leakage
  • Lowers operating costs
  • Delivers real customer insight

Contact us today to explore how we can help you to achieve higher customer satisfaction and increase your revenues.