Echo to deliver specialist customer service and new software to Northern Ireland Water

Echo has won a new contract to deliver contact management, billing, and collection management services for Northern Ireland Water. The contract will run for up to 10 years – initially seven with the option for NIW to extend for a further three – and was awarded following a competitive procurement process.

Echo van

Echo has worked with Northern Ireland Water (NIW) for the last 17 years and will be delivering a high-quality, two-part solution including both service and software with the implementation of its innovative CRM and billing software, Aptumo.

The state-of-the-art technology, already used by water companies in both England and Australia, has been developed by Echo’s experienced water market team. Alongside the service delivery expertise of Echo’s Northern Ireland-based team of customer service professionals, Aptumo will support NIW’s core values by delivering exceptional customer service, using comprehensive data to enhance the customer experience, and agile technology to future proof its customer service activities.

Native to the Salesforce platform, the Aptumo CRM and billing solution will provide sector leading security and resilience – and will allow rich customer engagement to be delivered by the Echo and NIW teams from any location or device. Being highly configurable, Aptumo enables change to be delivered in-house by the customer service teams which can significantly reduce the ongoing cost to own.

To make it as easy as possible for customers to engage with NIW, Echo’s ongoing customer listening and feedback strategy will support continual innovation in the customer experience. It puts the customer at the heart of everything they do and aims to make the relationship between customer and water company as individual as possible. Its omnichannel customer entry capability gives customers a choice in how they want to contact the water supplier, along with the freedom to move between channels and the confidence that a full communication history will always be available.

The solution will give the contact centre team a holistic 3600 view of customer interactions, enables greater automation within workflows, and recommends ‘next best actions’ driven by Salesforce-powered AI, Einstein. They will also have access to a personalised dashboard which displays a workload overview, items due a response, and upcoming events, all to help them better serve NIW’s customers.

“We are excited to be working in partnership with Echo to realise a step change in NI Water’s future customer service delivery. This is an extraordinary opportunity for us all to help shape our new solution and work together to deliver a world class service for our customers.” Stephanie McCullagh, director of customer & operations at Northern Ireland Water

“Echo has a long-standing and collaborative relationship with Northern Ireland Water, so we’re delighted to be the chosen partner for the new contract and to have the opportunity to continue working together. We’re looking forward to the months ahead as we start out on this new journey to implement Aptumo and further transform service for Northern Ireland Water’s customers.” Monica Mackintosh, managing director, Echo Managed Services

Over the next 12 months, NIW will be working in close collaboration with Echo, process owners, and key stakeholders to help deliver the new platform by Q3 2024.