Annual Report 2016
A new customer-centric approach to debt collection
Northern Ireland Water (NIW),
the sole provider of water and
sewerage services in Northern
Ireland, needed to reduce the
amount of debt owed by its
customer base, however a
proportion of customers were
not engaging with traditional
office-based communication
channels and collection
strategies.
Echo, which has provided end-to-end
customer contact management for
NIW since 2006, helped the company
turn its traditional collections model on
its head by creating a new approach
and strategy to re-engage with the
customer base.
Echo will continue with the RapidXtra
retail ready programme in order to
successfully hit the Open Water go
live dates for both shadow and full
market opening. In addition, we
remain committed to the continued
investment in and development
of RapidXtra in line with evolving
markets and client needs.
As the water market opens up
to competition within the nonhousehold sector, Echo is well
positioned to further expand
and evolve its end-to-end retail
managed service in line with the
Open Water vision; supporting water
companies to deliver customer
service excellence to non-household
customers through the deployment
New field based Customer Liaison
Officers (CLOs) were employed
to travel to customer premises to
discuss debt issues in person. With
an appreciation that every case is
different, Echo’s CLOs treat customers
as individuals, taking into account their
personal circumstances, listening and
understanding in order to support the
customer and reach an appropriate
agreement. The success of this new
of market leading billing software
and supporting customer contact
services.
For wider markets and with regard
to debt management services,
Echo will continue to grow its
end-to-end proposition and target
deeper market penetration across
a range of key industry sectors. For
contact centre services, the focus
continues to be on developing and
delivering multi-channel value driven
propositions for customers.
customer-centric approach has
led to the CLO team size being
increased by 60%.
The new approach has led to a 25%
reduction in aged debt and 98.1%
of billed revenue being collected.
Customers are also more satisfied
and CLO insight has helped inform
and improve policy.
“Echo is
supporting
its clients
to deliver
customer
service
excellence.”
Echo will therefore continue to
pursue opportunities to add new
clients, expand the services provided
to existing clients and identify and
acquire businesses aligned with our
strategy and which add value to our
client base.
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