What You Should Look for in a Utility Billing Customer Service Solution
You need a way to serve your customers, and your customers need a way to interact with you. And although many customer information systems store your information, they don’t always make it easy to find customer information quickly and efficiently. So if you’re in the market for a new CIS system, what features should you look for in your new utility billing customer service solution?
Improves User Experience
The software your team uses daily stores much data you need access to quickly. Having software with an intuitive user experience helps your Customer Service Representatives (CSR) find the information they need easily and efficiently. Legacy software often requires searching within each field for information and special formulas to sort data. But when a utility billing customer service solution has guided workflows, in-app guidance, and global search, your team can quickly pull up and account for a customer or premise, ensuring that customers are served quickly.
Your customers are becoming more technologically aware, and your software needs to keep up with your customers’ wants and needs. When you have a customer service solution that integrates seamlessly with your customer web portal, mobile workforce management software, and video engagement software, you allow our community to take charge of their accounts. Having this level of control helps them to proactively maintain their accounts, be informed about service quickly, and obtain relevant account information in a form that is easy to digest.
Maximizes Staff Efficiency and Productivity
The purpose of all software is to increase efficiency and productivity. And legacy software does that until it doesn’t anymore. As technology advances, software becomes more intuitive, and users become more proficient, the software they use must evolve. What worked 10, even 5 years ago, is now considered outdated. And although your staff is efficient and productive, think of the time you’ll save and how much morale will improve if your new CIS utility billing customer service solution helps you to serve more customers in less time.
Reduce Customer Handling Time
Utility Billing Customer Service Solutions that are efficient reduce a utility’s average handling time and give hours back to your staff each week. Here’s how
Surfaces more information with fewer clicks and opened windows: When software is designed with the end user in mind, users can find what they need when needed. No need to click on several fields to find the correct information, and you don’t need to have more than one screen or open lots of windows. Software with a clean, color-coded dashboard interface highlights critical information and helps your team drill down into any dashboard tile when more information is needed.
Improves First Contact Resolution Times and Average Resolution Time Per Issue: How many times has your team had to call a customer back with an answer to one of their questions? When your software is easy to search and surfaces the correct information to answer a customer’s question, often one contact is all you need to solve a problem. When a problem cannot be resolved with one contact, good utility billing customer service solutions help to reduce the time it takes for all issues, making your team more efficient.
Reduce Customer Handling Time: Customers don’t like waiting in line, and as technology evolves, customers like waiting even less. So having customer service software that surfaces information quickly is essential today. Guided workflows, global search, and an easy-to-use dashboard that surfaces critical information help to reduce customer handling time because the information your team needs is right at their fingertips.
Keep Critical Personal and Private Customer Information Secure
Undoubtedly, bad actors are attacking utilities because they can exploit your community’s personal and private information. All you have to do is search, and you’ll find a utility that’s been the latest ransomware victim or another cyberattack. Your utility billing customer information software stores your community’s personal and private information, and you need the newest software with the best protection. Although good at helping your staff serve your customers, legacy software is not always as secure as it can be, and bad actors know how to exploit these weaknesses.
When you move our CIS to the NorthStar cloud, you have a world-class architecture in AWS, keeping your data secure. And you have NorthStar’s team helping you to keep your data safe and secure.
New customer service software comes out on the marketing regularly, and it’s important to know what features you should have for your team to serve your community well. So if you’re in the market for a utility billing customer service solution like NorthStar CIS7, contact our sales team for a demo.