[Carla Mete]

Hi Darryl,
I am happy to help, so I will answer your questions as best I can. Our print file data extract has not change by implementing rates by email and sms reminders.

A ratepayer who wants to register for either email or sms has to go to SCC website then click on “Rates”. Here we have our general rates information and the link for registration. If you want to take a look copy and paste this into your web browser:

http://www.shellharbour.nsw.gov.au/Home.aspx

The ratepayer then has to click on the “Email By Rates” button at the top middle of the page. This takes them to the registrations page that our print house PML has set up for us. The registrations are managed by PML, similarly to our BPay View registrations. We looked at managing the registrations in house but the job seemed more than our small team could handle. Extracting a file and sending to PML was an option, but the more complicated option. And as PML had the capabilities to managed the registrations on our behalf we went with them and I haven’t been disappointed.

All SMS registrations come to us to approve, so we then record the mobile number against the owners NAR. Email registrations are approved automatically if they enter the correct data i.e. the names as they appear exactly on a rates notice etc. if they do not match 100% details then it comes to us to review and either approve or deactivated. Even those that did get approved automatically I review the registrations every day or every two days and if the email address does not use the owners name in the email address I will call the owners to discuss the email address and act accordingly. Again, through this registration, we record the email addresses against the NAR.

After every Instalment, Reminder/Final notices are emailed, PML send me an email report. This report shows if the rates were successfully delivered or if they failed. We have a rule set that if the email fails, depending on the reason why it failed, we deactivate the registration and the rates notice then is posted in the mail. We also attempt to call the owner to advise that the email failed.