Smart water technology has evolved the water utility’s role within municipalities to have a seat at the proverbial Smart City table, participate in the IoT plan, and drive water stewardship. There are many benefits to replacing your meter system with AMI (Advanced Meter Infrastructure) technology. For the utility, the game-changer is when you couple it with meter data management software which streamlines and prioritizes data so you can make timely, informed decisions.
“Customers, whenever they have really high consumption, they always call us and want to know why. With our current AMI system, we can just go to the computer, check to see what their address is, plug it in, and it gives us the consumption by day, and by the hour. Therefore, it is very helpful to us and is able to resolve the customer’s concern right away.” – Irma Mendoza, Manager, Utility Billing Office, Round Rock, TX
With Master Meter’s combined Allegro AMI and Harmony MDM solution, Belforest Water System, Inc experienced a 93 percent reduction in time spent on meter reads and administrative tasks and can now complete 54 percent of work orders without ever leaving the office. Their proactive approach to notifying customers about leak alerts resulted in fewer leak adjustments on customer bills. The cost value of the adjustments is trending down 55 percent from 2014.
The Ripple Effect
The real magic begins when you encourage your customer to be their own water manager by way of a customer portal, which encourages water stewardship. Harmony Encore MDM and My Water Advisor customer portal and app will build a bridge of transparency between customer service reps and your customers. The portal gives customers up-to-date usage, alerts, consumption comparisons, and peace of mind with respect to leaks or other issues. It’s the tool you need to reduce calls from customers receiving unexpectedly high bills.
Communicating the value of the app to your customers and getting them to sign up and use the customer portal will be easy. Let them know the “what’s-in-it-for-me,” like how leak alerts are insurance for your plumbing or how monitoring your daily water use can lead to savings on the household budget. Communicating the value of the app also provides the opportunity to communicate the Value of Water while promoting water stewardship.
The bottom line is that we are all water stewards. Every consumer. Every homeowner. We all are stakeholders in preserving, protecting, and promoting sustainability – ultimately, each one of us needs to be a water manager.
