Media Contact:
Mack McKenzie
402-963-1324

Columbus, Ohio:  To succeed in today’s fast-paced world, utilities must communicate with their customers in every imaginable way, including landlines, cell phones, pagers, voicemail, text messaging, e-mail and more. Twenty First Century Communications (TFCC), provider of utility communication solutions, and iFactor Consulting, a leading supplier of utility software and consulting services, today announced a strategic alliance offering utilities new ways of using technology to connect people to information.

Utilities have long used TFCC’s High Volume Call Answering system to field the large influx of calls during power outages.  Now, in case of a power outage, TFCC utility customers can tap into iFactor’s Storm Center and Notifi technology.  Storm Center lets utility customers go online to see the extent of the power outage, even down to their local area. Notifi is an enterprise communications system which allows utilities to communicate with customers using email and text message.

According to Jim Kennedy, TFCC chief executive officer, “Teaming with iFactor and their Storm Center and Notifi products is an important step in the evolution of our Utility Communication Solution.” 

Utilities that achieve best-in-class customer satisfaction ratings recognize the tremendous value in effectively communicating with customers. “Using TFCC technology to communicate with utility customers opens up the mobile communication channel and is a key step in reducing costs. But the biggest benefit for utilities is improved customer service.” Kennedy added.

According to Brad Sileo, iFactor vice president of business development, the key is letting utility customers decide how they want to communicate with their utility. “iFactor’s outage communications product suite dovetails perfectly with TFCC’s utility communications solution. Combining TFCC’s 20 years of utility experience with iFactor opens up web and mobile channels to utilities.”

TFCC’s Utility Communication Solution handles a wide variety of common outage messages including real-time outage alerts, outage updates, planned events, and unplanned events. Other uses include reminders for billing & payment, service appointments, program enrollment, energy usage and load curtailment.

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Columbus, Ohio   With the advent of the Smart Grid and other advancements, utilities will need to engage in an unprecedented level of interaction with their customers. Two new automated solutions from Twenty First Century Communications allow utilities to contact and interact with customers in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods.

Utilities will be able to accelerate their cash flow with Multi-Channel Interactive Collections, an automated collection method of contacting delinquent customers. Automated collection messages are sent to land lines, cell phones, email and fax. This multi-channel message delivery approach ensures the message is received and customers can respond at a convenient time. Customers can then choose from several immediate payment options.

According to Bently Collier, TFCC vice president of sales, “With Multi-Channel Interactive Collections, more people are contacted and more payments are made, allowing utility agents to be reassigned to higher value opportunities.” What sets this solution apart is TFCC’s unique ability to provide a secure direct connection into the utility’s Customer Information System (CIS). “This direct connection means utilities see real-time results instead of waiting for batch update at the end of the day,” said Collier. “Utilities love this because it limits unnecessary collection efforts,” Collier concluded.

Automated Customer Survey is an interactive messaging solution to survey and collect customer feedback using any touchtone telephone. Collier said, “Automated Customer Survey provides a fast, inexpensive and secure way to survey customers. It can be used to gauge customer satisfaction, gather feedback on new products, verify service delivery, conduct market research, measure program success and more.”

Columbus, Ohio:  The east coast was hit again this past weekend with what seems like a never-ending rash of bad weather.  Today, utility crews up and down the east coast are cleaning up from four inches of rain and wind gusts exceeding 70 mph, resulting in loss of power to hundreds of thousands of customers in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Since January, the east coast has been battered by two massive snow storms, the west coast had a weekend of heavy rain and mudslides, and Texas witnessed a rare snow fall. According to Jim Kennedy Twenty First Century Communications (TFCC) chief executive officer this winter has been one of the busiest in company history. “These weather events alone accounted for almost 2.5 million customer calls through our High Volume Call Answering system and our Emergency Notification Solution.”  “We worked around the clock again this past weekend to support numerous utilities and public safety agencies impacted by the heavy rain and wind” Kennedy added.

One of the biggest problems utilities face after a storm like last weekend’s, is responding to the massive number of calls from customers reporting a power outage. To solve this problem, most utilities use a High Volume Call Answering system developed by TFCC.  This system helps utilities field the heavy incoming call traffic associated with power outages and uses automation to return restoration information.  It also collects outage information and feeds critical data back to the utility so they can quickly assess the outage footprint and efficiently address restoration for their customers.

In addition to heavy incoming calls, dozens of utilities and hundreds of public safety agencies use TFCC‘s outbound notification system to rapidly place high volumes of calls. This system helps verify service restoration, broadcast important storm information to the public, respond to a crisis, provide evacuation warnings, missing person alerts, boil water alerts, and mobilize first responders.

“We’ve been helping utilities and public safety agencies handle high call volumes for more than 20 years and this winter tops them all” Kennedy concluded.

Find out about all TFCC’s Utility Communication Solutions by visiting with us during CS Week.

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