Utility Mutual Assistance – Now Available for Call Centers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 28, 2008
Twenty First Century Communications, Trusted Provider of Industry Standard High Volume Call Answering, Introduces Patent Pending “Mutual Assistance Routing System”
Columbus, Ohio:Â Twenty First Century Communications (TFCC) is proud to announce its newest utility communications solution for customer service, the Mutual Assistance Routing System, or MARS (patent pending).
TFCC revolutionized utility outage reporting when it introduced High Volume Call Answering (HVCA) in 1989. An automated interactive voice response system, HVCA receives high volumes of power outage calls and integrates with utilities’ Outage Management Systems. Today, TFCC’s industry standard HVCA is in place in 80 U.S. utilities, covering 70% of American households.
Now Twenty First Century Communications transforms the landscape of utility outage response once again – this time by enabling utilities to automatically redirect high volumes of outage calls to other utilities during crises and times of peak activity.
Mutual Assistance is the cornerstone of the utility industry – for power restoration. Until now, there has been no practical, cost-effective way for utilities to help each other in the call center.
While HVCA handles incoming calls with automation, TFCC recognizes that during extended outages utility customers eventually need to speak with live agents. However, utility call centers do not necessarily have enough agents available to meet that need. MARS enables utilities to re-route their customer calls to actual utility Customer Service Representatives with experience and industry knowledge.
How does MARS work?
Through MARS, disparate telecom carriers are no longer obstacles to re-routing calls between utilities. During a major power outage, “Requesting Utilities” call upon “Responding Utilities” to answer a designated number of their incoming customer calls.
MARS enables Responding Utility Customer Service Representatives (CSR) to gather information from customers via a simple web-based form. Through MARS, the CSR is able to provide restoration information directly to the customer. Then MARS seamlessly feeds data directly into the Requesting Utility’s internal systems and generates outage tickets.
