News

5/12/2010

Interactive Voice Response System (IVR) Implemented at Kankakee Valley REMC.

A goal of Kankakee Valley REMC is to meet the needs of our membership.  This need could be anything from reliable electric service, affordable rates or a convenient way to pay your bill.  As we strive to continuously make improvements and changes, we have identified that to be able to offer our membership the ability to access their account and make a payment after hours would be of great benefit.  This will now be available through the implementation of an Interactive Voice Response system (IVR).

There are many features that the IVR system will allow for our membership to take advantage of every time you call the office.  Kankakee Valley REMC will use the service to all for our membership to pay their bills after hours through an automated service.  Even when the office isn't open, you can access your account to find out your account balance or make a payment.  To make the IVRE system work to its fullest potential through, you must know your account number and/or have up to three valid phone numbers on file at the office.  The system will only be able to assist you if you have this information and it has been updated in our system.

Another way we will be using the system is to contact you when your account is delinquent.  In the past, when your account is past due and up for potential disconnection you received an automated phone call from our office.  You would then call our office the following morning and make payment to avoid disconnection that day.  With the new system in place, when you receive this phone call there will be a prompt available for your to make an immediate payment on your account. This will allow you to avoid disconnection and additional reconnection fees.  It will also avoid you having to make a phone call to our office in the morning. 

Kankakee Valley REMC will also be utilizing the IVR system for outage reporting.  This system will allow for our membership to report an outage quickly and easily even when there is a high volume of calls in the office. 

Although it doesn't happen often, there are times that we need to do repairs or maintenance during the day.  To do this safely we have to take the line out of service.  In the future, with the IVR system in place, we will be able to notify our membership in advance of this planned outage.  The system will make you aware of when the outage will take place and roughly how long you can expect to be without service.

The information listed above are just a few of the potential uses for the IVR system.  We feel very confident that this system will allow for us to continue to strengthen our reliability and customer satisfaction that you as a member have grown to appreciate from your cooperative

Back to News