The process illustrated above is highly tedious and time-consuming and is long drawn. The three-pronged process can take up to three to four weeks. At times, the supply to the site continues and hence unpaid invoices are mounting and no revenue coming in, something that is clearly a big cost to the company. Without proper intimation and timely reach out to the occupier, the company may lose the customer to a competitor supplier.
Another challenge that presents itself is the retention of customers. While several service providers do address invoices to ‘Occupants’, a customer would feel more compelled to continue should his/her name be used.
While sending out letters to the address on the account, the company also must ensure prior notification is given as per the AEMO guidelines. This ensures that no incorrect disconnection orders are being sent out. Sufficient time must be given to the occupier to respond to the letter and claim the account supplying a name and other details as asked.
To bring down the Turnaround time and reduce the workload, Infoveave built out an RPA to address the need.
The BOT is designed and trained to perform a series of activities:
- From the FTP location access the list of accounts that are not tagged with a named account holder. AN RPA (Robotic Process Automation) bot is trained to weed out the homeowner’s addresses. This process helps create a list of homes that are either unoccupied or have new owners.
- The bot scans through the list created and proceeds to send out an LOI (Letter of Intent) to all the homes titled ‘Occupant’. If there is no response to the notification, the bot proceeds to send out the DOL (Disconnection Occupant Letter) in a few days.
- The list continues to get smaller, based on the responses received. A final DSO (Disconnection Service Order) notification is sent to those homes that have not communicated with the company.
- The Process illustrated helps the service provider plug revenue leakage while retaining existing customers.