Better customer service with the help of Water Portal

Remotely readable water meters enable new services 

Remotely readable water meters enable real-time remote reading of consumption data and through this the provision of various value-added services to customers. Joensuu Water wanted to improve its customer satisfaction by offering its customers a Water Portal that works with a web browser and mobile devices. The Water Portal provided by Elkome enables real-time monitoring of consumption data and sending alerts to the customer's email about possible problem situations. 

Water consumption monitoring and consumption behavior 

Customers can monitor their own water consumption on the Water Portal throughout the day with an hourly accuracy. Consumption can also be viewed on a yearly, monthly, weekly and daily basis. The consumption information is updated to the service every hour and remains in the system for two years. From the Water Portal, it is easy to see how, for example, watering the yard in the summer consumes clean drinking water. 

- Our customers are even more interested in environmental issues and want to monitor their own water consumption. From the Water Portal, customers can easily see when and how much water has been used, says Sanna Pihlapuro, Financial Manager of Joensuu Water. 

Alarm for a leaking faucet or water damage 

The Water Portal has an alarm functionality that the customer can activate for his use. The Water Portal receives information about the continuous flow from the error code of the remotely readable meter, based on which a message about the observation is immediately sent to the email addresses set by the user. In this way, the customer can avoid unnecessary costs, for example, from water consumption caused by an open tap. Wetting of structures caused by broken pipes can also be minimized with the help of alarms. 

- We have monitored these alarms manually in the past and when we noticed, informed customers about possible water leaks. In the future, we want the monitoring to be real-time in Water Portal and information about a possible leak to reach the customer immediately, continues Pihlapuro. 

Cost-effective remote reading covering the entire water network 

Joensuu Vesi uses Kamstrup's remotely readable water meters, which work excellently in collecting consumption data, if the property is located in an optimal area for the remote reading network. However, long data transmission distances and, for example, terrains create challenges. 

- Our goal is to offer all customers the same services. The functionality of the remotely readable system and the capacity of the data transmission must be ensured so that the data is transferred to Water Portal quickly enough. We continue to expand the remote reading network and are currently testing new water meters based on NB-IoT technology, says Sami Nygren, Production Manager of Joensuu Water. 

Customer-specific customizations and further development of the software 

For Joensuu Water, integration to the customer information system was carried out as customer-specific customization. The necessary customer information is automatically updated to Water Portal, and there is no need to manually copy the information from one system to another. Customers can use Water Portal almost as soon as they have opened a new water connection or notified their move. 

- Since Water Portal is our own software development, we can easily fulfill customer-specific special wishes. We also take into account customers' wishes and ideas in the further development of Water Portal, says Mika Syrjämäki, Elkome's Product Manager.