Water board outsources customer services

Northern Ireland Water hires third party for seven-year, £70m contract

Northern Ireland Water Service has outsourced its customer billing systems and services in a contract valued at £70m.

The seven-year deal with the Xansa-led Crystal Alliance will help the organisation cope with changes to its business when it is privatised next year.

William Duddy, Northern Ireland Water’s director of customer services, says that the organisation will be responsible for billing some 760,000 domestic customers when the privatisation takes place.

‘In the past, we only had to bill 45,000 non-domestic customers, so we saw the need to upgrade the existing billing system and our client contact processes to help deal with the developing business context,’ he said.

‘We are looking to combine our local water service knowledge and skill base with proven utility and private sector expertise in the regulated company field.’

Under the terms of the contract, the Crystal Alliance will establish a customer relations centre to handle customer complaints and enquiries, which will be managed by sub-contractor Echo Managed Services.

The contract will also include a mobile work management system that will link with the customer centre to improve efficiency of maintenance work.

AMTSybex will provide mobile work management technology to ensure that enquiries from customers are communicated directly to the water service’s 900-strong mobile workforce, creating a fast and efficient response to complaints.

‘The mobile system will give us a direct line of communication from our customer contact centre to laptops in the field and provide for the collection of asset data, so we can expand our database and inform investment for the future,’ said Duddy.

‘But we are mainly looking to improve customer response and operational efficiency.’