Dalkia deploys Gentrack Billing and CRM software solution in Ireland

30 April 2010: Dalkia, Europe’s leading company in Energy Management, Utilities and Facilities solutions, has successfully deployed the Gentrack Velocity utility billing and CRM software.

Gentrack, a leading supplier of smart software solutions to energy and water utilities, today announced the successful completion of a project to deliver its specialist utility billing, CRM and collections application to Dalkia in Ireland. Dalkia is the energy division of Veolia Environment, a global leader in environmental solutions employing over 300,000 people worldwide.

The 12-week project included the implementation of Gentrack’s smart billing and CRM software to enable Dalkia to bill its customers in residential and commercial district heating schemes across Ireland, while also effectively supporting communications and revenue collections activities of Dalkia’s heating service provision to these same customers.

Gentrack CEO James Docking said the project was a huge success given the complexities of heating schemes in Ireland, in particular calculating and apportioning heat losses.

“Gentrack Velocity has a robust utility billing engine used in a number of utilities worldwide. This engine is the key to enabling companies like Dalkia to handle a multitude of price and tariff variables for accurately calculating heat usage and losses,” he said. “Dalkia set us the challenge of delivering to a tight timeframe and I am pleased to say they are now live on the new Gentrack Velocity system after an intense testing regime completed earlier this year.”

In addition to supporting Dalkia’s heating billing requirements, the newly implemented Gentrack Velocity system provides a set of smart CRM and collections tools to enable Dalkia to deliver improved levels of customer service and to offer customers a range of flexible payment options.

“We have invested considerably in designing a specialist CRM solution for energy management organisations like Dalkia, that can be integrated with a multitude of innovative metering technologies”, said Docking. “Our focus is on providing the smart CRM tools needed to support the continuous improvement of the customer experience and take customer relationships to new levels. Having a comprehensive toolkit of payment and communication options at their fingertips ensures Dalkia can offer a variety of payment options to ensure an optimal customer experience, understand the commercial dynamics of their customer base, and are efficient in their interactions with their customers.”

Mark Coyne, Dalkia Technical Director, was delighted with the project outcomes and the decision to back Gentrack in preference to a number of other utility billing and CRM vendors.

He said: “Gentrack Velocity offered Dalkia the capability and flexibility to meet our diverse business requirements out of the box. Velocity’s features allow us to significantly improve the efficiency of our internal processes, provide new insights into our customer base, and offer customers a significantly improved service. At each stage of the implementation, the Gentrack team demonstrated complete focus on delivering our business needs, and achieving the challenging timescales set. We are delighted with the product. ”

Gentrack continues to build on its growth into the UK utility software market on the back of its recent successful implementation project at OVO Energy – the UK’s first energy start-up for over three years. Now with a strong sales and support team on the ground in the UK, Gentrack continues to punch above its weight, seen by its customers around the world as the value based alternative to some of the larger software companies based in the USA and Europe.

“We thrive on being an agile vendor in the utility and airport software markets in which we operate”, concluded Docking. “This enables our teams to deliver real value to customers – especially as they look to ‘get runs on the board’ in a tough economic climate.”