City Council has unanimously approved a new wholesale agreement for Greater Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW) to provide Butler County with an additional wholesale water source.  The new wholesale interconnection will also serve as a back-up emergency connection for GCWW to receive water from Butler County. GCWW has been looking to develop alternative sources of water and this interconnection will provide GCWW with an additional source of drinking water and fire suppression capability should there be a disruption to our water system.

In addition, GCWW has entered into an agreement with Butler County to provide billing and customer care services.  Our target date to begin providing these services is Monday, December 6, 2004.  At that time, GCWW will take over servicing approximately 38,000 monthly accounts billing for water and sewer services.

GCWW Customer Service Representatives will answer Butler County customer calls through our Call Center.  A new Interactive Voice Response System (IVR) has been customized specifically for Butler County customers.  In true GCWW spirit, our strategy is to make this as seamless as possible for the customer, so GCWW representatives will actually answer Butler County calls - "Butler County Department of Environmental Services".

Butler County will continue to provide all field services in-house.  GCWW will generate service orders for them through customer calls and they will be responsible for completing the work.  Many interfaces and business processes are being designed so that this partnership can provide the highest level of customer service to the customer.  This is the first agreement GCWW has entered into to provide billing and customer care services for a utility outside of our service area.   It leverages the investments that GCWW has made in its customer service technologies that have put us on the leading edge of customer care delivery.