SAP Contact Center – New Quality for Utilities

We have completed the implementation of SAP Business Communications Management contact centre at Eszakdunantuli Vizmu (EDV): a water and sewerage company, which provides their services in north-west Hungary. It was the first integration of SAP BCM with SAP IS-U (Information System for Utilities) in the world.

SAP BCM contact centre has streamlined communication between EDV and its clients, while its integration with SAP I-SU has made it possible to provide better and more comprehensive services. What is new in the utilities industry is that consumers can enter their meter readings directly to the billing system using an automatic service called IVR.

Information about consumer comes with their calls

SAP BCM contact centre implemented in EDV cleverly directs incoming phone calls to competent consultants. When there is an incoming call, a call center agent receives information about the caller: before the conversation starts information about a given customer, including their billing details and contact history recorded in SAP IS-U, appears on screen. The caller is identified by means of a special ID they enter to the IVR. Upon verification, SAP BCM contact centre utilises the information stored in SAP IS-U and opens a given consumer’s data chart. Because the SAP IS-U function is called directly from the IVR level, the client identification process and verification of data are really quick. When talking to a customer, a consultant relies directly on the data from SAP IS-U which include e.g. water consumption records or arrears in payments.

No meter reader

Clients of EDV in Hungary can declare their water meter readings to a meter reader at home or enter the data directly to SAP IS-U using IVR. However, before a consumer can enter the readings, their data are subject to a verification process using their individual ID. Next, the data entered by the caller is identified using information about the type of their meter, previous bills and conformity with the forecast. If the data is positively verified and approved by the contact centre system, it is automatically stored in the SAP IS-U billing system database.

Conversation with a consultant as part of your customer card

It is not only consumer details, meter readings, consultant comments, information about payments but also conversations themselves that are stored in SAP IS-U from SAP BCM contact centre. Information about conversations which have been recorded is stored in SAP I-SU on customer cards. This enables listening to every conversation a customer has held with a customer service centre from the billing system level. If necessity arises, e.g. in case of complaints, a given conversation can be played back and customers can be reminded about their arrangements with consultants.

Remote integration: in Hungary from Warsaw

“The implementation of the contact centre at EDVin Hungary took less than 3 months – said Sebastian Tur, Technical Director of Comtrust – The structure of SAP BCM contact centre guarantees not only short implementation time, but also enables us to do it remotely. 80% of all implementation works was performed from Poland, using VPN”.