Intelligent Government: Who Owns Your Water Meter?

If you’re a city, county, or water utility you’re probably saying, “Is this a serious question?” The answer to your question is YES. And the answer to my question to you is probably, “I don’t know…” Yes, you own the physical water meter in the ground, but the real question is, “Who actually owns the meter in terms of responsibility?” When someone calls in with a complaint about a high bill, who checks it out? When a customer tells you they suspect a leak or maybe they have bad-tasting water, who checks that out? In dealing with hundreds of different agencies over the years, I can say that the answer varies from city to city.

As a software vendor writing these words, I’m supposed to say that your software is all wrong and you need to buy our software. Just between us, we know that technology can only provide some of the answers, not all. But read on ….

The breakdown seems to be in how departments within an agency are structured. Traditionally, Public Works and Customer Service are two separate departments. You can easily see this by going to an agency’s website—they have two different phone numbers for non-emergency calls. For example, you’re instructed to call (916) 555-1212 for all billing-related questions and, if the agency is really hip, 311 for all other calls. Otherwise, it probably lists Public Works: (916) 555-1211. This tells me that there are two different departments set up to serve their customers. While you’re doing your best to provide great service, more times than not it’s fragmented. If a customer calls the Parks Department, the Parks Department probably can’t pull up Carlos Thomas and be able to see everything about Carlos Thomas.

A citizen (a.k.a. “customer” if you’re hip and “rate payer” if you entered the government workforce in the ’70s or ’80s) sees your agency as one agency. But you have separate departments and usually separate technology behind the scenes supporting your employees. There’s the problem.

When someone calls in to complain about his water bill and to complain about the water quality, what happens? It will be logged into your billing system. The water quality call is not going out to your meter readers. It will probably be directed to Public Works. But, Public Works field employees are not “billing” people. They use a work order system. How do you get the information to them? Interface? Phone call?

Let’s say you have an interface. This means you’re duplicating data. You have to send the information to the work order system. They work on it and, with any luck, you get a piece of paper back saying that it’s complete. Maybe it’s a bi-directional interface. Then the customer service billing system is updated.

That’s not a very efficient way to run your business. Many problems can surface. When the field employee arrives onsite, what information does he have at his disposal? Is it all available in the work order system? What if he sees some enforcement issues like illegal water tap or dumping? Can he log that in the same system, or is that another department (code enforcement) and another system?

In today’s economy, you need to invest in your technology to make your agency run better. You might be saying, “Carlos, we can’t spend money on technology right now.” But you and I both know that you’re not going to get more people to do the job. You can’t hook up more horses to the wagon. You need a better wagon. You need to do more with less. When the economy is back on its feet, will your agency be pointed in the right direction, or will you still be using the same outdated and inefficient business practices from 10 years ago?

Oh yeah, I said I’m supposed to tell you that buying our integrated CIS Billing and Work Management solution will help your problems go away. But I don’t think I need to tell you that. You know what you need to do. Call us, and we can help you plan your technology roadmap.

Check out these on-demand CIS Billing Series webinars for more information about integrating your systems: