Bellevue, Iowa Benefits Long-Term
The City of Bellevue, Iowa provides water, sewer, electric, cable and internet to their subscribers. Teri Michaels has worked for the city for the past 8 years and has worked closely with eLation since 2015. Teri discusses the path to automation and what life looks like post-conversion. Bellevue has eliminated handwritten tickets and faxing orders and have utilized automation so they can focus their efforts on other areas of their business.
Multiple Systems to One
Prior to eLation, staff at Bellevue were entering information in multiple systems. “It was a lot of duplicate work from one system to another. There were so many different screens. You had to go to one system to do the services order, one system for billing purposes, then put information into another system so it could provision over. Then eLation came along, and it was all in one system.” eLation is simple to navigate and allows for internal flexibility. Bellevue was able to have one of their staff members complete billing and check in on the business while on maternity leave. One central database has allowed staff to work closely, even when employees need to work remotely.
Paper to Automated System
Like many providers, Bellevue staff was handwriting orders and faxing information to technicians. Bellevue didn’t have the visibility they wanted and couldn’t reference what occurred from office to field and back. “We couldn’t to go back to see what the techs did on the call. When our techs did readings on meters, they wrote them down on a paper slip and we had to fax them. Now orders are all automated. If we need to get a customer a setup for cable or internet, eLation provisions the data.” Teri estimates that Bellevue saves about 5-6 hours a week with eLation. “Prior to eLation, Billing took a whole day for us to just print/stuff the envelopes.” Automation has not only saved Bellevue staff time, but also given them the visibility and full picture of customer data they need to have.
Organized Data
Bellevue utilizes the notes section to store all details about a customer. This helps staff easily identify if something is a rental property vs. a single family home. eLation “made a huge impact on how fast orders have gone through or getting a customer set up. It’s so much easier. We can send notes back and forth internally.” Teri explains that this level of customer detail and technician detail was lost before when everything was manual. eLation keeps all notes tied to the customer so that internal staff have visibility into the issue and resolution for their customers, improving service and minimizing back and forth.
Future
Teri and the Bellevue staff work closely together to ensure that their customers receive the best support. Internally, they really utilize the system to track and store everything related to the customer, tickets and all resolutions so that staff has the most complete picture possible. Teri explains that utilizing eLation has made trouble tickets easier and a smoother process for customers as well as internal staff. Michels talks about the support and training Bellevue has received from Innovative Systems. Innovative Systems staff, “came in and trained us [on eLation]. They are just an email/call away or the technical support online is available also. Innovative has been great to work with.”
