Bermuda Electric Light Company Ltd. (Belco) announced yesterday that the company had received an industry award recognizing improvements in customer service.

The 'Expanding Excellence Awards' are presented annually to utility companies during Customer Service Week by CS Week Newsline publication and Light & Power magazine.

BELCO was awarded 'Best CIS (Customer Information System) Implementation' for a small utility at a recent industry conference in Nashville, Tennessee. Belco introduced its new CIS facility in January 2009.

"For a variety of reasons, it became apparent in 2006 that we needed to replace our legacy customer information system to ensure reliability and availability," said Belco executive vice-president Andrew Parsons, explaining the shift.

The company then solicited proposals from various IT consultants, before settling on Cayenta, a Harris Computer Systems company headquartered in Canada, to provide the system.

Belco says that, from the project's inception in 2006, approximately 50 people invested 30,000 hours into upgrading the existing system. At a cost of $3.7 million, the project was completed on time within 13 months.

Stephen Burrowes, a senior analyst at Belco who headed the project, said of the company's undertaking: "We are just as proud of what did not result from the project, as we are of what did. For example, no customers received bills for a million dollars, no payments were misapplied, service did not degrade and we did not lose revenue due to billing mistakes."

Belco's new system allows customers to access accounts online, view consumption history and account transactions, apply for and terminate accounts, update contact information, request services and pay bills online. The new system also enables convenient paperless billing, direct debit payment to ensure that payments are always on time so the discount always applies, on-demand direct debit and equalised annual budget billing. With the new system, customers can also use the automated phone system to make account inquiries and authorize on-demand direct debit payment.

Belco customers can begin to use the new system by visiting www.belco.bm or calling 299-2800.