Vero electric customers won’t get Florida Power & Light’s low rates anytime soon, but by next summer they may finally get something else FPL customers have long taken for granted – the ability to manage their electric accounts via their home computers or even their smart phones.
During the years the Vero Beach City Council was actively pursuing a full sale of the electric system to FPL, the city lacked the impetus to bankroll the modernization of a system that was about to get sold off.
But as prospects of closing the FPL deal began to look bleak, the council tasked City Manager Jim O’Connor and Finance Director Cindy Lawson with finding ways to automate the systems, in hopes it would reduce the number of cashiers and customer service staff needed to handle telephone calls and face-to-face interactions.
“We’ve still got a large number of people coming in to pay their bills in person,” Lawson said. “We’re hoping to reduce that.”
The latest phase of system and software enhancements from Cayenta software and InvoiceCloud, approved by the City Council last week, will offer more options for customers to pay their bills. Those changes are expected to cost about $73,000 to implement, plus about $30,000 per year in bank and credit card fees due to the anticipated increase in electronic transactions.
Lawson said the new system will allow customers to make credit card payments without having to be transferred to a separate card-processing website as at the present. The system upgrade will also handle auto-pay drafts or one-time payments from checking accounts.
