We just got a letter from Urban Utilities suggesting that a Body Corporate that we manage has a water leak. We take such a letter very seriously because we know that water leaks can be very expensive. However, in this case, the Body Corporate was a relatively new development. The automatic letter generated by the Urban Utilities computer system was working on thresholds for the total water consumption of the Body Corporate. This had increased greatly because the lot owners had moved in. The lot owners all have their own water meter which is subsidiary to the Body Corporate meter. The Body Corporate is only charged for water metered after subtracting the water metered to all the lots. This is either leakage or community water such as a tap for car washing. On investigation, the increased consumption was all lot related – there was no consumption attributable to the Body Corporate.
Business processes that are incorrect really annoy us. This process was not only increasing printing and postage costs for Urban Utilities but causing time, effort and angst for their clients. No doubt, there are many customers like us who are getting a letter that should never have been sent. As you might expect of our company, we sent a letter to Urban Utilities asking them to improve their systems.
