Seattle City Light, one of the nation’s largest municipal-owned utilities, can now inform customers of the causes of outages and give estimated times for service restoration, thereby improving communications with customers as well as interactions between dispatchers and repair crews. This is all possible as a result of its implementation of Oracle Utilities Network Management System, which Oracle, together with Infosys Technologies, announced in a press release today.
Tasked by the Seattle-based utility to help leverage its investment in new technology for better customer service, Infosys utilized its systems integration capabilities and consulting solutions to implement the Oracle solution within an expedited timeframe of 16 months.
The Oracle system is said to enhance the coordination of service restoration efforts by enabling real-time information sharing. The network management system also is improving Seattle City Light’s call center customer service performance. It predicts which customers are affected by outages, so when customers contact the call center, customer representatives will be able to share the outage restoration information as well.
To sum it up, the Oracle Utilities Network Management System at Seattle City Light is improving operational efficiency and flexibility, increasing customer service, reducing duration of outages and integrating data from existing information systems.
The effect is felt by the in-house Seattle City Light staff. Kelly Enright, director of Customer Service and executive sponsor of Seattle City Light, said, “Our investment in technology has helped us better inform our customers and equip our operations personnel to improve overall customer service, especially during storm season. The implementation of the Oracle system was smoothly expedited from a timeframe perspective while working with Infosys on change management activities to ensure success of the overall project.”
Ankush Patel, vice president and head of Utilities, North America, Infosys, remarked, “Utilities, such as Seattle City Light, can optimize data and analytics by turning them into valuable insights to improve customer service, drive business value, leverage existing investments and yield competitive advantages."