ARE KIOSKS IN YOUR FUTURE? TPPA MARKETING & CUSTOMER SERVICE - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

ARE KIOSKS IN YOUR FUTURE?

TPPA MARKETING & CUSTOMER SERVICE CONFERENCE

MARCH 3, 2015

Vicki Reim Division Manager Customer Operations Bryan Texas Utilities

Bryan Texas Utilities (BTU)

• Established in

1909, BTU serves the city of Bryan and 3 rural counties

• Serves over 51,000

electric customers

• 22,000 water,

wastewater, solid waste and transportation & drainage customers

BTU Planned Kiosk for:

• Customer convenience
• Let customers handle

more of their own transactions – less hands-on from BTU staff

• Eventual

implementation of a new prepay system

BTU Prepay and Kiosk History

• 1998 - BTU implemented a prepay system,

PowerTrack, utilizing card swipe technology

• Prepay - extremely popular, over 4,ooo

customers and never advertised!

• Program limited due to lack of hardware

available

• Purchased a Diebold kiosk for vestibule

entrance to lobby to process PowerTrack cards, accessible 24 hours/day

PowerTrack Prepay Program

• Ended PowerTrack program and

removed prepay meters in 2011 to prepare for AMI meter installations

• Removed old kiosk
• Ending PowerTrack was not popular

with customers

Planning New Prepay

• Planned a new prepay program to be

implemented in late 2012

• Knowing we were planning a new, redesigned

prepay program helped customers accept that PowerTrack was ending

• Determined we needed additional payment
• ptions for prepay customers: immediate,

24 hour, cash payments

• Kiosks were the answer

BTU Kiosks

• Purchased in 2012
• 5 Kiosks - 4 locations
• Customized screens
• Spanish option
• Accept cash and
• checks. *Ending the
• ption to pay by credit

card due to PCI compliance, a BTU decision.

Kiosk Locations and Logistics

• Located in 2 grocery stores,

1 convenience store (24 hr) and BTU lobby

• Initially rolled out kiosks
• nly in lobby, this helped

employees and customers become familiar with kiosks

• CSR stationed in lobby to

help customers learn how to use it and become comfortable

Easy to Use

• Easy account access
• Kiosks read scan lines

printed on:

 Bills  Reminder and

termination letters

 Key cards

• Keycard scan lines are

linked to customers accounts.

Keycards

Kiosk Payments

• Payments immediately

post to customers accounts

• Armored car service

collects payments at remote kiosks every work day

BTU Kiosks – Future Plans

• New prepay option originally planned for

2012 was pushed to 2014 (electric and water)

• Prepay project put on hold in 2014
• BTU was adding more prepay CIS related

“help desk tickets” than were being fixed by the vendor. We were quality control for the prepay CIS product.

• Waiting to implement until the large majority
• f CIS prepay issues are resolved

Where Do We See Kiosks In The Future?

 Continuing as an important payment option  Expanding with a through-wall kiosk in the drive-

• through. Customers will stay in car.

 One current location at 24-hour convenience store is

the least used. Plans to move it to a more heavily traveled area and larger store.

 24 hour location was needed when prepay was

eminent, not critical now customers have other 24 hour payment options

Customer Payment Options

• Customers have several payment options:

 Internet - Credit Card – 28.2%  Mail – 24.5%  CSR Transactions (lobby and drive-through) – 20%  Bank Draft – 8.6%  Internet - Electronic Check – 6.3%  Kiosks – 6%  Wire Payments – 4.7%  Western Union – 1.7%

Over 53,000 payments per month

Questions…?