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Your Account portal enables web self service

Utilities providers are under relentless pressure to deliver better shareholder returns by reducing costs and increasing efficiencies. At the same time, they need to deliver consistent, secure supply and fast, effective customer service. For this New Zealand company, one important step in addressing the challenges has been implementing a web-based customer self-service portal.

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A leading New Zealand utilities business

Utilities: Application development, Web-enabled business, Consulting

The Your Account web portal lets this utility company's 500,000+ customers securely access and update their account details, record their own meter readings, view invoices and pay their bills online, whenever and wherever they choose.

Now that customers can easily track their own usage and billing history online, they can make sure their invoices are correct and can also track upcoming payment due dates to ensure they always get their prompt payment discount. The portal also provides a perfect channel for the company to deliver information on new products and services to targeted audiences, and to gather intelligence on customer preferences through the use of online surveys.

We delivered:

  • A standards-based web portal solution for customer self-service
  • Complex integration with back-end billing and transaction engines
  • Custom Java-based software development to extend standard functionality and incorporate the customers' unique business rules and processes
  • Consultancy on optimal software architecture and infrastructure
  • Security, authentication and identity management

Business benefits:

  • Reduced customer service overheads as inbound calls have decreased
  • A more accurate and efficient billing system
  • More productive customer service staff who are able to focus on high priority issues such as faults rather than routine account and billing enquiries
  • Improved customer satisfaction and reduced churn
  • An online channel for effective target marketing and customer research
  • A robust, high-performance platform to support further development of web-delivered services

Why Optimation?

When it came to designing, building and rolling out the Your Account portal, Optimation was the logical choice for IT expertise as it had previously worked with the company to implement an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). This project used an SOA web services-capable middleware solution to integrate a variety of disparate legacy applications, creating a secure and flexible IT environment that could effectively respond to rapidly changing business requirements. At the same time, it allowed the business to make much better use of existing hardware, software and infrastructure investments.

Want to know more? Download the full case study (PDF, 181kb) or talk to our team.