The Managing Director of Umeme, Mr. Selectino Babungi has said that the adoption of technology innovation has improved service delivery in the utility over the past year.
“Since concession, Umeme’s promise to customers is to be an efficient supplier of safe, reliable electricity and friendly customer experience. Our service strategy has always been focused on process simplification, automation and investments to improve network performance,” he said.
Mr. Babungi, said “there has been integration of Umeme’s payment platforms with all the major financial institutions, mobile money operators and points of sale service points which has improved service delivery and cut company costs.” He said
Adding, this has enabled the closeout of cash offices within our retail outlets. This initiative not only improved our operating efficiencies, but improved the customer experience in our retail outlets and freed some resources tied to cash management work stream, Babungi said
He further noted “We revamped our contact centre through deployment of a new call manager and provision of many online customer digital channels, including the UmemeApp. We have noted about 56% reduction in voice calls and growth in other digital communication platforms. Umeme shall continue to be open and accessible 24/7, at the service of its customers.” Babungi added
Babungi said that during the year, the company’s customer base closed at 1,015,000, of which 70.1% are on prepaid metering. “We aim to convert the remaining households from postpaid to pre-paid metering in the next one year,” he said.
He says they have introduced intelligent network watchdog -SCADA, which helps in detecting faults on the network and helping in quick supply restoration, reduction in outages, Automated Meter Reading (AMR) for large consumer users, e-bills and SMS bills, all of which have offered customers a new lot of customer experience by giving them the power to manage and control their consumption and bills.
“Umeme has also injected approximately $18m in the Automated Meter Reading (AMR) technology to support its operations at metering installations as well as protect the revenue from of the industrial and commercial customers,” Babungi said.
Further still, industrial and commercial customers account for over 70% of Umeme’s sales and revenue albeit being just about 2.0% out of a total customer database. As such, they contribute significantly to the company’s performance. Through the project, the existing old metering installations are replaced with AMR installations in the same location. Customers where the AMR infrastructure is installed are provided with a web access portal from which they can view their consumption profiles and billing information.
