FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JEA Deploys Oracle®
Utilities Customer Care and Billing to Help Maximize Billing Efficiency
and Deliver Superior Customer Service
Utility Manages Record
Traffic First Day of Go-Live
REDWOOD SHORES, CA., February 05, 2008 - Oracle today announced
that JEA -- a leading utility providing electricity and water services
to residents in and around Jacksonville, Florida -- has implemented
Oracle(R) Utilities Customer Care and Billing to help streamline
billing processes and optimize customer satisfaction. JEA effectively
managed record traffic in its call centers and branch offices, and
processed more than $19 million in payments the first day the system
was live.
Providing electricity and water services to more than 360,000
customers in Jacksonville and parts of three adjacent counties,
JEA must produce nearly five million bills, process approximately
four million payments, respond to almost 1.5 million telephone calls
and perform half a million field services at customer locations
annually. Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing helps JEA effectively
and efficiently manage this high volume of billing and service transactions.
"Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing exceeded our expectations
for performance in just the first few days of production,"
said Marlene Murphy-Roach, vice president of customer relationships,
JEA. "Early results indicate that the deployment was, by all
standards, successful and our users are adapting rapidly to the
new system. The partnership between our business and technology
teams as well as BearingPoint -- our management and technology consulting
partner -- and Oracle has proven to be a successful model for our
future customer information system upgrades."
Accelerating Billing Processes and Improving Customer Service
The largest community-owned utility in Florida and the eighth largest
in the United States, JEA is committed to providing customers with
prompt and accurate billing, as well as superior service. With Oracle
Utilities Customer Care and Billing, JEA is now able to balance
cash drawers every day at the end of a shift within minutes. With
Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, customer service representatives
now have a 360-degree view of their customers - allowing them to
more quickly and effectively track, manage and resolve customer
queries.
Because it is standards-based, Oracle Utilities Customer Care
and Billing also integrates well with JEA's field service application,
improving visibility into real-time customer data and allowing JEA
to reduce the duration of customer outages.
Also, by using Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, JEA
was able to leverage the application's rich out-of-the-box functionality,
restructuring nearly all of the features created by more than 300
baseline customizations in the company's legacy system. This allowed
JEA to eliminate the expense and maintenance of several auxiliary
applications including the cashiering and loan billing programs,
as well as limit the need for additional costly customizations
"JEA has a long-standing commitment to providing outstanding
service to its growing customer base," said Quentin Grady,
senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities. "Our
best-in-class customer information system is designed to help leading
utilities like JEA deliver on service objectives by improving visibility
into customer data and processing payments more quickly -- while
at the same time, reducing IT costs. We look forward to continuing
to build our partnership with JEA as it leverages our application
suite to realize new efficiencies and enhance performance across
the entire organization."
About Oracle Utilities
Oracle Utilities delivers the proven software applications that
help utilities achieve competitive advantage, business performance
excellence and a lower total cost of technology ownership. Oracle
Utilities integrates industry-specific customer care and billing,
network management, work and asset management, mobile workforce
management and meter data management applications with the capabilities
of Oracle's industry-leading enterprise applications, business intelligence
tools, middleware and database technologies. Oracle Utilities enables
its customers to adapt more nimbly to market deregulation, meet
ever-evolving customer demands, and deliver on commitments to environmental
conservation. For more information, visit www.oracle.com/industries/utilities.
Trademarks
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
# # #
|