El Paso Water enters a new digital age of customer service beginning March 2.
The next-generation customer information system (CIS) upgrade will offer customers multiple self-service options – in English and Spanish – to interact with the utility’s Customer Service Department, aside from the traditional phone line.
Introducing self-service
Through the new My Account one-stop shop at epwater.org, the utility is empowering customers to pay their bills, with no added fees, activate start/stop service, track water consumption or choose from other essential transactions they can complete on their own.
“The goal is to provide a modern system to benefit not just El Paso Water staff but our customers, too,” said Marcela Navarrete, Vice President Strategic, Financial and Management Services.
“We wanted to make the system more user-friendly so that customers can easily make payments and access their account information,” said Mark Bolduc, Utility Business and Customer Service Manager. “The new payment and self-service options will significantly improve the overall customer experience.”
EPWater employees will benefit as well from a smoother, more integrated information system, which is expected to maximize efficiency and eliminate manual processes for employees in the field to the call center. With the addition of self-service transactions, customer service employees will have more time to focus on urgent customer issues.
Herculean effort
Since its August 2020 kickoff, the massive project is the result of more than 100,000 work hours, 60% from EPWater employees who have drawn on various skillsets to build a CIS for the 21st century customer. Hundreds of EPWater employees have trained for months on the new CIS, which will replace an outdated billing system that is more than 20 years old.
Delivering a game-changing project on time, despite multiple challenges faced throughout, is not lost on core team members. Chief among the challenges were the pandemic, as well as working with partners who were often several time zones away. System implementation partner Infosys is headquartered in India.
“Being part of a project of this magnitude is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Project Manager Werner Klouda. “The fact that the team did all this work during the pandemic and while working remotely 75% of the time is amazing.”
“This is a monumental customer service transformation program that will touch all of us at the utility,” said Business Systems Analyst Norma Dominguez, who has worked closely with Infosys as a project lead. “I am especially proud of the core team members and other employees who have contributed their skills to build it.”
After months of building and training, EPWater is ready to unveil improvements made to serve customers better.
“The undertaking of implementing a utility billing system is one of the biggest IT projects an entity can take on,” Navarrete said. “It is a huge effort by El Paso Water staff and its consultants. We are very, very grateful to all for their hard work and know that this project will be a success."
For additional information go to the My Account page.