#1 most frequent
United States of America
64.9%37 installations of 57
What is Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing?
Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing is offered to allow users to serve customers with an integrated platform from meter to customer. Available on premises and in the cloud, the solutions are designed to help deliver service excellence, reduce cost-to-serve, and prepare for change.
Categories & Use Cases
Who Buys & Uses Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing
#2 most frequent
Canada
10.5%6 installations of 57
#3 most frequent
Australia
5.3%3 installations of 57
A very powerful and trustworthy CIS and billing tool
Pros
- It is highly configurable.
- It is highly extendable and customizable.
- Its base batch programs allow you to perform most billing functions with no intervention.
Cons
- It can be too customizable in places that can increase your cost of ownership.
- Too complex in some areas.
- Nomenclature in CCB isn't the same as it is in MDM.
Return on Investment
- It allows us to bill all of our customers through batch if we want.
- It allows us to manually intervene and correct bills easily.
- It has good accounting features.
Oracle Customer Care and Billing Utilities at Duqeusne Light Company
Pros
- It does an excellent job of displaying bill charges and the coordinating configuration that generates those charges. The close proximity of these attributes makes troubleshooting easier for those in charge of configuration.
- Customer Care and Billing customer contacts in v2.6.0.1 are viewable by account. By this, I mean that a user can search an account and see all comments that users (or system interfaces) have left for the account.
- It integrates well with Oracle Utilities MDM. Having two base products makes the overall end-to-end meter to bill cycle more efficient and accurate.
Cons
- More configurable functionality for base processes. For example, payment files that get sent to a bank differ slightly for some banks. Oracle only offers one out of the box solution. Parameterizing algorithms and processes like these allow for less development from users.
- Easier navigation across modules (e.g. MDM) and standardized terminology. Many users of Oracle Utility MDM are unaware of basic Customer Care and Billing terminology, and vice versa, when they're referring to the same items.
- On a technical leveling, suggestions on how to partition Customer Care and Billing OUTSIDE OF using ILM would improve performance.
Return on Investment
- Oracle Customer Care and Billing has allowed us to reduce our billing analysts overall by truly automating this function. A feature called "to-dos" allows troubleshooting to occur quickly and precisely on problematic bills.
- It has allowed for a comprehensive customer database and the elimination of legacy systems.
- Integration with external systems is also a plus for Customer Care and Billing.
Alternatives Considered
Oracle E-Business Suite Procurement Contracts and Oracle PeopleSoft SCM
Other Software Used
Oracle SQL Developer
A+ for Oracle Customer Care and Billing
Pros
- Provides easy to navigate options, the application is user-friendly, it has help options along the way as well which provide the user support if they don't understand where they are at or what it is they are looking at.
- Provides organization and a clear history of customers, who used to be on a premise/service point, who is now, and readings which are how we bill.
- Easily tell where equipment is or has been, it is vital to not waste time and CCB helps with this.
Cons
- As much as I believe CCB is a user-friendly interface, I also believe it has room to be even simpler and easier to use and navigate.
Return on Investment
- CCB has had a very positive impact on our business. This organizes bill payments and field activities which are essential to our profits. The Field Activities organization and how it uses algorithms to spread out work so that it can be worked in the most efficient way possible is brilliant. This gets more work done, bring in more profit.
Alternatives Considered
Oracle SQL Developer and CGI PragmaCAD Mobile Workforce Management
Other Software Used
Oracle SQL Developer, CGI PragmaCAD Mobile Workforce Management
My Oracle Review
Pros
- Good user interface
- Integration with EBS system
- Mobile application
Cons
- User management
- Data security
- GIS integration
Return on Investment
- It is easy to use the system so the ROI is good.
Customer Care & Billing in the Utility Industry
Pros
- Amount of data displayed to our front end users
- Provides a financial overview for the CSRs in knowing what the customer's financial obligation is to the company
Cons
- System response time when the page provides lots of data from various portals
Return on Investment
- I'm not aware of any negative impacts implementing the application had from a financial perspective
Other Software Used
Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management (MDM)
