GTE to Use Retail Stores in Computerized Bill-Paying Plan

Beginning next month, GTE California customers in Orange County will be able to pay their telephone bills as they pick up prescription drugs, liquor or hardware items and have the payments electronically credited to their accounts in less than 24 hours.

Coast Hardware, Coast Liquor and Village Pharmacy, all in Laguna Beach, are scheduled to be the first of up to 12 Orange County retail stores expected to participate in a new computerized bill collection system that will involve 250 to 300 stores statewide.

With 187,000 Orange County customers, GTE California ranks behind Pacific Bell as the second-largest telephone company in the county.

The 10 to 12 retail stores participating in the computerized payment system will be in Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, Seal Beach and Westminster. The three Laguna Beach stores will launch the service on Feb. 8, and the others will join the network by mid-April.

Some Pay in Person

Although GTE encourages payment by mail, about 20% of the company’s customers opt to pay in person, said public affairs director Tom Leweck. In-person payments traditionally have been accepted at customer service centers operated by the company.

But GTE’s customer service centers in California are being closed as a result of a California Public Utilities Commission order in 1984 requiring GTE to separate its communications operations from its phone maintenance services by Jan. 1 of this year.

The PUC order, which spurred GTE’s decision to switch to a retail-based collection system, was intended to eliminate the company’s advantage over independent telephone hardware businesses. The agency already had issued a similar order affecting Pacific Bell.

To comply with the PUC order, GTE created a subsidiary, GTEL, to take over its telephone sales, installation and maintenance operations. On Jan. 1, GTE stopped providing those services at its customer service centers.

GTE anticipates that it will save $1.5 million to $2 million annually in staffing, rental and overhead costs as it shuts down the 32 centers across the state.

Switch Began Last Fall

The conversion to the computerized bill-collection system, which began last fall with successful pilot projects at retail stores in Oxnard, Azusa and Redondo Beach, is expected to be completed by June 1.

GTE has contracted with New Jersey-based National Payments Network, an electronic payment collection service, to implement the system. NPN serves telephone and utility companies on the East Coast and in California.

Beginning at about 9 p.m. each evening, bill payment information will be relayed over telephone lines from computer terminals installed in each of the participating stores to an NPN office in Westlake Village, said Don Tanner, NPN’s Western regional director.

After collecting the data from the individual stores, NPN will transfer the information to GTE headquarters in Thousand Oaks by about 2 a.m.

After the store owners deposit the bill payments in their bank accounts, NPN electronically transfers the funds to GTE, Tanner said.

NPN will give retail stores that already accept in-person bill payments for GTE the opportunity to participate in the computerized network “out of courtesy and because they are familiar with the system,� an NPN spokesman said.

The company expects many retailers, who are paid an undisclosed fee per transaction, to welcome the opportunity to increase traffic in their businesses by offering the bill-collection service. Likely candidates for new sites include grocery stores and pharmacies, Tanner said.

In addition to increasing the number of locations at which customers can pay their bills in person, most participating stores stay open longer than GTE’s customer service centers, which operate from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Leweck said.

GTE customers will be notified of the new locations by mail.