July
2005
We've
Got Your Number
But
is it the right one?
Making
sure Walton EMC has your correct phone number
and service address is about to become more important than ever.
That's
because your cooperative is bringing a new power outage management
system online. The new system, called dataVoice, can answer hundreds
of outage calls and accurately predict the location of trouble in
just minutes, providing a big improvement over the present system.
When
the new system is up and running, our capacity to take your outage
calls will be tripled.
How
does dataVoice do its job so quickly? It matches the caller ID information
sent from your phone to the number we have on file in our customer
database. That's why it's so important Walton EMC has the correct
phone number for the location of your electric account.
You
tell us that you prefer a real person answer our phones, and that's
what happens over  90
percent of the time. But during a large outage, thousands of customer-owners
call at once and an automated system allows us to serve you better–-especially
if the outage is outside normal business hours.
When
you call Walton EMC during an outage and dataVoice answers, a real-sounding
computer voice lets you know your outage
has been reported. Upon confirming your identity (via caller ID
or by your input), the system checks known outages, looks up your
name in the billing system and then says, “If your name is “Smith”
(your name), we are aware that your power is out. Crews are in the
process of repair. If you would like a callback after power has
been restored, please press one now.”
That's
right–you can schedule a courtesy call letting you know when
power is restored. If it's not, you can let us know by the
push of a phone button that your lights are still out.
But
even if we don't have your correct phone number or service address,
you can still report your outage quickly and easily by following
the voice prompts.
“The
dataVoice system is top of the line,” says SCADA Administrator Shannon
Still, “but correct information on our customer-owners is
critical to having it work quickly and efficiently.”
Be
sure to check the phone number and service address Walton EMC has
listed for your account at the top of your electric bill.
Send
us corrections to your information.
More
Information: dataVoice
International Read
other articles in this month's Realite:
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