Yankee Gas Services Co. inaugurated its new customer and billingservice this week, completing a process begun in collaboration withIBM two years ago. Yankee said the system will enhance customerservice, improve efficiency and is Y2K ready. The company would notrelease the cost of the new system.

“This new system is strategically important to Yankee Gas andwas an attractive feature to Northeast Utilities during mergertalks,” said Charles Gooley, CEO of Yankee Gas’ parent company,Yankee Energy System. “Our old system may have been adequate 10years ago, but it is obsolete in today’s changing energyenvironment.”

The new system features the ability to handle unbundling ofresidential energy customers, in anticipation of futuredevelopments in the state of Connecticut. It will support all ofYankee’s business processes including order processing, meterreading, billing, payment processing, credit and collections andaccounting functions. It will also be able to handle third partynotifications and Yankee’s budget payment plan.

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