metering.com 13 MAY 2016
Glendale Water and Power (GWP) received an award at CS Week for its customer engagement programme aimed at digitising its services.
The utility providing water services to some 33,744 customers and 88,100 electric consumers in Glendale, California was awarded the 2016 CS Week Expanding Excellence Award in the “Best in Mobility Implementation” category.
The award is presented to utilities that develop the best innovative measure to improve its customer service through a two way communication from the metering to the bill payment stage.
In its project, Mobile My Connect App, GWP deployed Smart Utility Systems’ (SUS) Smart Customer Mobile (SCM) technology which provided the utility’s website with a consumer self-service functionality.
Deepak Garg, CEO of SUS said the Software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform helped the city utility in “redefining the traditional utility-customer relationship by focusing on educating, engaging and empowering their customers.”
In a press statement, the California based customer engagement SaaS provider claims its platform launched in Q3 2014 helps to maximise a utility’s return on investment by enhancing operational efficiency and reducing the cost of customer service operations.
Smart water solutions
The news follows early April’s launch of a new smart water mapping and work management solution to help utilities manage their assets by global IT company Trimble.
In a press statement, the company said its new technology ‘Trimble Unity 3.0’ is a cloud-based GIS centric Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for smart water management.
By using the tech, the US based company claims that utilities will optimise their operations through improved grid asset monitoring achieved through the firm’s GNSS mapping technology integrated in the solution.
The solution allows utilities to monitor real time operations, deploy smart meters, as well as quickly attend to leaks to reduce non-revenue water, explains the statement. [92% of US utilities engage customers through mobile sites – report]
In addition, the solution contains an App Builder which customers can use to integrate their own apps with Unity 3.0 to improve existing workflows and data collection processes.