2017 Recap: Communicating with Customers in New Ways

Monthly Billing

Next month will mark one year since Cleveland Water began transitioning customers from quarterly to monthly billing. All customer accounts were converted in March. Our data indicate that the transition was successful. After experiencing an influx of calls at the beginning of the year as customers were adjusting to the new billing method, call numbers dropped down to pre-monthly billing levels. 99.8% of bills are being generated and delivered on time and payment processing times have remained steady despite the increased workload.

Monthly billing has allowed our customers to better budget and receive more timely information about usage. In addition, it has given Cleveland Water an opportunity to regularly deliver important messages directly to our customers. Each bill includes an informational insert and a message directly on the bill. Be sure to pay attention to these, as they contain important information on home protection tips, cost-saving programs, and upcoming events.

AMR

The majority of our automatic meter readers were installed over the past several years. Now our focus is on collecting data on and ensuring the performance of the meters. Over 402,000 properties have been upgraded since the start of the project with 98% of the new meters being accurately read across the network. The majority of bills that contain estimated reads are the result of legacy meters that have not yet been converted.

Customers can access data from their AMRs via our web portal. By creating an account on My.ClevelandWater.com, customers can pay their bills, sign up for paperless billing, track water usage by the day or the hour, and sign up for leak detection alerts. To date, 41,411 customers have been notified of potential leaks through our web portal, saving time and money.