Water Sewer Billing Update

Presentation by DeKalb Department of Finance

DeKalb County, Georgia 1 Department of Finance

Agenda
* Issues
* Call Center Staffing
* Moratorium & Audit
* Consumption Reports
* Veolia
* Initiatives
* Satellite Locations
* Automated Payment Line
* Communication Campaign

* Next Steps
DeKalb County, Georgia 2 Department of Finance

Issues
* Customer phone calls not answered at call center
* Long Wait/Hold Times
* Dropped Calls

* Maloof Water Payment Center experiencing high

volume and congested wait areas
* Customer complaints regarding high water bills
* Customer desire for additional information from DeKalb
County concerning billing process, consumption, leaks
and billing errors
DeKalb County, Georgia 3 Department of Finance

Call Center Staffing

* Addition of the Hire Dynamics staff has increased the
full-time call center staff from 20 to 55 people
* New service level agreements have been implemented
to manage calls requiring additional handling or
research
* In-depth training for the Hire Dynamics staff is ongoing,
with one class currently in-session and scheduled to
conclude no later than December 31. Additional training
will significantly improve the customer service
experience by enabling the new staff to provide more
first-call resolutions
DeKalb County, Georgia 4 Department of Finance

Call Center Staffing: CST performance dashboards

were created, a critical first step to building an effective call center
management system
# Calls
25000

Abandonment Rate and Call

Volumes

ABN Rate
35%

30%
20000
25%
15000

20%

15%

10000

5000

Total
Calls
ABN
Rate

10%

5%

0%

Data shows:
These two
indicators should
trend similarly but
are divergent
Reasons for
divergence calls
for more research:
Ineffective
resource
mgmt;
Outside
interference
affecting call
center ops

DeKalb County, Georgia 5 Department of Finance

Call Center Staffing: Additional metrics tracking,

and goal-setting must be incorporated into call center management
practices
Data shows:
In Oct, due to the
increase of staff,
phone were
answered quickly
causing a rise in
SL
Subsequently, the
ASA decreased
because there
were more staff
answering
phones
Evidence of
immediate impact
Source: Microlog Data
of staff increase
DeKalb County, Georgia Department
of Finance
6

Moratorium & Audit

* On September 30, 2014 DeKalb County instituted a temporary
moratorium on water disconnections, which ended on October 15,
2014
* 5,640 DeKalb County residents were identified with recent bills totally
twice their normal averages or greater
* As of December 1, 2014, 93% (5,250) accounts audited and source
of variance identified
* All accounts to be resolved by December 15, 2014 and all affected
accounts will receive letters about their account and next steps
* Variances in water sewer bill can have a variety of root causes,
including increased consumer consumption, undetected leaks,
irrigation usage, inaccurate meter reading and estimated bills.

DeKalb County, Georgia 7 Department of Finance

Consumption Reports
* Sent to all Individual Customer Accounts (commercial
and residential)
* Commercial- Monthly Billing
* Residential Varies (monthly and bimonthly)

* Contain a history of water sewer consumption and cost

in DeKalb County
* Personal usage comparative from April 2013 through
September 2014
* Will be added to monthly and bi-monthly bills 1QTR
2015
DeKalb County, Georgia 8 Department of Finance

Consumption Reports (cont)

* The above chart shows an example of constant usage (no change

month over month) of 10,000 gallons per month, which cost
$125.00 in 2012 and now $153.94 in 2014.
* *In 2007, due to changes in regula6ons, DeKalb County made a
series of adjustments to its water billing, star6ng over a ve-year
period, at an annual 16 percent rate increase and then a three-year
period at an annual 11 rate percent increase.
DeKalb County, Georgia 9 Department of Finance

Consumption Graph (sample)

DeKalb County, Georgia 10 Department of Finance

Onboarding Veolia
* Veolia, a globally-recognized in water services, engaged with
the customer service group the week of November 3
* Veolia will present monthly milestone metrics to the steering
committee and the Board of Commissioners
* The tasks of the Veolia team include
* Redesign the currently-used Interactive Voice Response system
(IVR) to reduce call durations and improve self-serve options
* Work with IT and the billing software vendor to improve that
systems response time
* Spearhead the invoice redesign and internal bill image access

* Two integrated Veolia team members interact daily with the

customer service group and provide real-time coaching and
recommendations for improved operations.
DeKalb County, Georgia 11 Department of Finance

Initiative: Satellite Locations

* 60 Satellite Payment Locations.

* Payment sites at local Kroger, Citgo, Walmart and
other retail locations are set up around the county
to provide easy bill payment options for customers.
* A map and list of these locations can be found on
the DeKalb County Watershed website:
http://www.dekalbwatershed.com/payyourbill.html

DeKalb County, Georgia 12 Department of Finance

Initiative: Communication
Campaign
* Town Hall Presentations.
* In addition to the seminars at the Neighborhood Summit
on November 1, various DeKalb County commissioners
have invited the Department of Finance to present on
the improvements to the water billing process
* Feedback from the town hall meetings and
Neighborhood Summit shows residents are receptive to
the new satellite payment locations and have
experienced an improvement in customer service
DeKalb County, Georgia 13 Department of Finance

Initiative: Communication
Campaign
* Other Communications.
* Significant communications strategy has been underway
to complement operations. Including:
* Updated list of customer frequently-asked questions
* Proactively issuing a press release, detailing
improvements to-date, as well as a forward-looking plan of
action for county residents

DeKalb County, Georgia 14 Department of Finance

Next Steps: Staffing

* Continued in-depth training and development
* Third Fully trained CSR class completed by February
28th, 2015
* Development of First Call Resolution
* Establishing Performance Metrics for CSRs

DeKalb County, Georgia 15 Department of Finance

Next Steps: Communication

* Satellite Location Communication Campaign
* Signage in recreational centers, libraries and Walmart

* DeKalb County Bill Redesign

* Communications team plans to issue a follow-up press
release(s), including any and all customer service and
efficiency improvements/successes
* Continued Customer Outreach and Education
* Website Updates
* Water Conservation
* Leak Detection
DeKalb County, Georgia 16 Department of Finance

Next Steps: Operations

* Analysis of Water Billing Customer Service Hours of
Operations
* Technology Integration
* Reduce repetitive Monthly/Bi-Monthly Bill Estimates
* Quality Control of full billing cycle
* Meter reading
* System Upload
* Billing Audit

DeKalb County, Georgia 17 Department of Finance

Questions

DeKalb County, Georgia 18 Department of Finance