TFCC and iFactor Consulting Announce Partnership

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 19, 2010

New Utility Communication Alliance Offers Customer Self-Service and Power Outage Communication Choices

Columbus, Ohio, July 20, 2010: To succeed in today’s fast-paced world, utilities must communicate with their customers in every imaginable way, including landlines, cell phones, pagers, voicemail, text messaging, e-mail and more. Twenty First Century Communications (TFCC), provider of utility communication solutions, and iFactor Consulting, a leading supplier of utility software and consulting services, today announced a strategic alliance offering utilities new ways of using technology to connect people to information.

Utilities have long used TFCC’s High Volume Call Answering system to field the large influx of calls during power outages.  Now, in case of a power outage, TFCC utility customers can tap into iFactor’s Storm Center and Notifi technology.  Storm Center lets utility customers go online to see the extent of the power outage, even down to their local area. Notifi is an enterprise communications system which allows utilities to communicate with customers using email and text message.

According to Jim Kennedy, TFCC chief executive officer, “Teaming with iFactor and their Storm Center and Notifi products is an important step in the evolution of our Utility Communication Solution.” 

Utilities that achieve best-in-class customer satisfaction ratings recognize the tremendous value in effectively communicating with customers. “Using TFCC technology to communicate with utility customers opens up the mobile communication channel and is a key step in reducing costs. But the biggest benefit for utilities is improved customer service.” Kennedy added.

According to Brad Sileo, iFactor vice president of business development, the key is letting utility customers decide how they want to communicate with their utility. “iFactor’s outage communications product suite dovetails perfectly with TFCC’s utility communications solution. Combining TFCC’s 20 years of utility experience with iFactor opens up web and mobile channels to utilities.”

TFCC’s Utility Communication Solution handles a wide variety of common outage messages including real-time outage alerts, outage updates, planned events, and unplanned events. Other uses include reminders for billing & payment, service appointments, program enrollment, energy usage and load curtailment.

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