West Monroe Introduces Water Utility Customer Service Transformation Services

West Monroe Partners, a full-service North American business and technology consultancy recently announced that is has formally added Water Utility Customer Service Transformation to the suite of solutions currently offered by its Energy & Utilities practice. These services balance a need for investing in infrastructure while supporting increased customer service expectations.

To assist water utilities with increasing customer demands, bad debt, water leakage, an aging infrastructure and workforce, and billing inaccuracy issues, West Monroe Partners has developed an offering that helps water utilities tackle these challenges. West Monroe Partners works with water utilities to optimize processes, identify the right technologies, and position its workforce to leverage the new technology and processes. A key component of West Monroe’s methodology is creating a culture of measurement and continuous improvement. West Monroe Partners has found that identifying key performance indicators for processes such as customer payment delinquency rates or number of billing exceptions--along with goals for improvement bring the necessary focus, employee engagement, and accountability to enable sustainable improvements.

West Monroe Partners is currently helping multiple water utilities address these challenges while they transform their organizations. These transformations start with a strategic plan that includes the business case, approach, technology roadmap, and identifies the organizational impacts the utility will face. The results of many of these projects address key issues, improve service levels, reduce bad debt and improve employee engagement for clients.

“Transformation is something that every utility should be thinking about right now. Evolving expectations have placed a high demand on customer experience and meter operations but utilities are struggling to keep up – both financially and operationally. Many utilities aren’t sure how to tackle this problem, but we believe that creating a strategic customer service transformation plan is an important initial step. In addition to a strong ROI, we believe that offering a great customer experience is necessary to meet today’s challenging customer expectations. We are excited for what the future holds for this market and look forward to helping our utility clients achieve their strategic vision,” said Tom Hulsebosch, managing director of West Monroe’s Energy & Utilities Practice.

West Monroe has completed a benchmark study on credit & collection practices of electric and water utilities by surveying many different utility types and sizes. This study has culminated in a collection of credit & collection best practices that utilities can use to reduce risk, enhance revenue protection, and improve the overall customer experience. The white paper highlighting the findings can be found by clicking on this link.

For more information reach out to Tom Hulsebosch or Dave Tilson, director, business consulting.