● Public sector — Water & sanitation management
AI agent for managing water and sanitation
An assistant that manages customer accounts, prepares the billing and answers complaints — the officer keeps control of the files and the decisions. Hosted in France, on a resource isolated for each authority or water board: customers' data never leaves the European Union. The AI agent assesses, the department decides.
Hosted in France
Customers' data protected
GDPR & AI Act: governed deployment
The department decides on rebates
Updated on
Deployed in a few weeks
Water & sanitation assistant · hosted in France
A customer reports an unusually high bill and suspects a leak after the meter. Assess their request.
Request assessed. Consumption recorded: 187 m³ against 62 m³ on average over the last three periods — the threshold of twice the average consumption is exceeded, and the request falls within the leak scheme in your service rules. Document expected: the plumber's repair certificate.
A draft letter requesting the document has been prepared; the decision on a rebate will remain yours.
⛓ Source · the customer's readings + the service rules
A draft letter requesting the document has been prepared; the decision on a rebate will remain yours.
⛓ Source · the customer's readings + the service rules
Prepare the connections requested this week by new customers.
9 account files prepared: contracts filled in (identity, address of the supply point, applicable rate), opening readings recorded, welcome letters with a monthly instalment mandate. Two missing proofs of address flagged.
All submitted for your approval before activation.
✎ Action · files ready for approval — the department's officer approves
All submitted for your approval before activation.
✎ Action · files ready for approval — the department's officer approves
Local inference · no data outside the EU
Data hosted in France
Sovereign by designLocal inference or hosting in France
GDPR & AI Act: governed deploymentTraceability & human oversight
TurnkeyDesigned, installed and operated for you
The department decidesRebates & payment plans stay human
✦ In brief
In a water and sanitation department, a Blue Lemon Agent agent assists the teams with the repetitive tasks — accounts, connections and closures, preparing the billing (readings, estimates, monthly instalments), handling complaints (leaks, excess consumption, rebates) — and answers customers on every channel. It is hosted in France on a resource isolated for each authority or water board, architecture designed to reduce exposure to extraterritorial legislation, location alone not being enough to guarantee immunity, and adapts to your rate tables and your service rules. Rebates and payment plans remain decided by the department. Live within a few weeks. Your public-sector staff write to it from Microsoft Teams, Slack or their email, and your subscribers reach it on WhatsApp Business, the website chat or email — with no account to create and nothing to install. Reaching the administration from the tool people already have means less non-take-up of rights and equal access to the service. These connections are included in every plan, at no extra cost, within the number of connections your level includes.
100%
hosted in France in the target architecture
0
transfer outside the EU in the target architecture
7
uses ready to deploy on this scope
0
decision taken without human approval
Reference points describing our offer, not results measured at a client. The scale of the gain is confirmed by a pilot on your own scope.
The context
Why AI matters to water departments — and why they hesitate
Moves in, closures, readings, disputed bills, leaks: a water department handles a continuous flow of customer files, with peaks at every billing round. The data handled — identities, addresses, consumption, bank details — deserves flawless protection.
! The issue
Water and sanitation managers are caught between customers who expect quick answers — especially when the bill comes as a surprise — and time-consuming administration: accounts, readings, monthly instalments, complaints, leak rebates. Yet most consumer AI tools amount to entrusting customers' identities, consumption and bank details to a third party, often hosted outside Europe and subject to the Cloud Act.
✓ Our answer
For a public water service, AI is only of interest if it is sovereign and confidential by design. Local inference or an isolated resource hosted in France, systematic human oversight, assessment against your own service rules: rebates and payment plans remain decisions of the department, never of the machine. The time saved on everyday administration goes back to the relationship with customers and the quality of the service.
The decisive point
Protecting customers' data: sovereignty & compliance
A water department handles identities, addresses, consumption and bank details. Here is how the architecture of our agents protects them, authority by authority.
Local inference
The agent can run on a machine at the unit: no data leaves the network, nothing passes through a cloud.
Hosting in France
Otherwise, a dedicated and isolated resource, hosted in France under French law — customers' data: processing and access within the European Union targeted by the architecture.
Reduced extraterritorial exposure
Exposure of customers' data to the Cloud Act and FISA 702 is reduced by design; location alone does not guarantee immunity.
One isolated resource per authority
No pooling of data: an environment dedicated to your authority or water board, across multiple rates and areas.
Encryption & controlled access
Encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access (RBAC), strong authentication and logging.
AI Act: governed deployment
The agent is strictly in support; no rebate and no disconnection is automated; traceability and human oversight from end to end.
What depends on the architecture chosen These points are not general guarantees: they are settled deployment by deployment, in the quotation.
- The applicable location is that of the architecture set out in the quotation and verified before commissioning.
- Local execution is announced only for the configuration explicitly described and accepted in the quotation.
- The applicable isolation depends on the deployment mode set out in the quotation; no dedicated isolation is presumed.
- The encryption mechanisms in transit and at rest, their components and key management are those documented for the architecture chosen.
- Roles and permissions are configured and accepted for the identities and systems actually connected.
- The events logged, their content, their retention period and who may access them are defined for the deployment chosen.
For the most sensitive data, SecNumCloud and HDS options are available depending on your requirements. A single architecture is designed to answer both the GDPR and extraterritorial exposure. Designed for deployment in line with the GDPR and the AI Act, after the processing, roles and context-specific risks have been assessed.
Demonstration
See the agent at work
4 real situations, taken from those that come up most often. Pick one: the exchange unfolds as it would in your organisation.
A scripted demonstration. These exchanges show how the agent behaves — its sources, its refusals, what it leaves to your teams. Nothing is sent from this page, no model is queried here, and the matters named are fictional. That is precisely what we promise your data.
The behaviours shown here — monitoring, automation rules, routing and reminders — are configured with you during deployment, from your tools, your rules and your thresholds.
The architecture points named in these exchanges — location, local execution, isolation, encryption, role-based access, logging — are not a guarantee attached to the demonstration: they are those of the architecture set out in your quotation, and verified before commissioning.
The public body in this demonstration
Fictional public bodyVallée du Cerneuil Water and Sanitation Authority — 23 municipalities (fictional authority)
- Sector
- Joint drinking water and mains sanitation authority across 23 municipalities, 31,400 inhabitants served — 842 km of drinking water network, one treatment plant, 4 wastewater treatment works; run in-house since 1998
- Headcount
- 41 staff in the authority, 9 of them on customer service and billing — 7 case officers, one head of customer service and one apprentice; the other 32 operate the network and the plants, and the agent does not touch that side
- Public served
- 14,900 customers — 13,620 households, 980 businesses, 300 apartment blocks and managing agents; 26,400 enquiries a year: 15,100 phone calls, 6,800 emails, 2,900 website forms, 1,600 counter visits
- Order of magnitude
- 2 billing runs a year, 29,800 invoices issued; 1,774,200 m³ billed in 2025 against 2,270,000 m³ put into distribution — network yield 78.4% in the annual report; 1,240 move-ins and 1,190 terminations; 2,340 complaints, of which 640 about leaks past the meter
- Tools already in place
- Customer management software (customer file, contracts, readings, payment plans), billing software, smart metering on 6,258 meters — 42% of the fleet —, service by-law, authority mailbox and Microsoft Teams; the agent reads them, nothing is replaced and nothing is migrated
- Who decides what
- The head of customer service approves every billing file and every letter before issue, and decides leak reductions and payment plans under delegation from the chair; tariffs are set by resolution of the joint authority board; any water disconnection rests with the chair
- Room for improvement
- 4,720 calls out of 15,100 ring unanswered in the three weeks following each billing run — 31.3%; an email waits 11 days; assessing a leak complaint takes 34 days; and out of the year's 640 leak files, 214 customers had never received the notice required by article L. 2224-12-4 III bis of the general local authorities code — €38,700 the authority no longer has the right to bill
In the Vallée du Cerneuil, nine staff carry customer relations and billing for 14,900 water and sanitation contracts, with two annual peaks at the meter-reading runs. The most repetitive questions — invoice amount, moving in, termination, meter index, monthly payment — take up three quarters of the flow, and it is the files that deserve a person, leaks past the meter first among them, that queue up behind. The exchanges below cover a full year, from the first reconciliation of readings to the report presented to the authority board. The agent is hosted in France on an isolated resource, reads the customer management software and the reading log without ever writing to them, and no reduction, no payment plan and no invoice goes out without a named decision by the head of customer service.
This public body, its figures and the exchanges that follow were invented for the demonstration. They illustrate a common situation; they describe no real service.
Water & sanitation assistant · hosted in France
I have reread your 26,400 enquiries for the year and run your 59,600 readings from the last 24 months against the threshold in article L. 2224-12-4 III bis of the general local authorities code — the reconciliation the reading run never leaves time for.
And I start with the figure that costs, because it cannot be recovered: out of the year's 640 leak files, 214 customers never received the notice the law requires. The text is unambiguous: « Failing the information […], the customer is not liable for payment of the share of consumption exceeding double the average consumption. » Those 214 files carry 22,500 m³ above the double — €38,700.00 at the drinking water variable rate, which you no longer have the right to bill, even with no plumber's certificate at all. This is not a penalty: it is the exact price of a letter that did not go out.
What the rest of the count says: 12 topics cover 19,800 enquiries out of 26,400, exactly three in four. Invoice amount, moving in, termination, meter index, monthly payment, payment methods, leaks and reductions, unexplained variances, water quality, new connections, off-mains sanitation, disconnection and reconnection. The 12 reference answers are written, sourced on your service by-law and on the tariff resolution of 11 December 2025, and dated.
What the three items you can check against your own logs are worth:
· Assessing a leak complaint takes 55 minutes, 60% of it spent gathering readings, history and by-law — 33 minutes.
· A new contract or termination file takes 28 minutes, 40% of it data entry and drafting — 11 minutes 12.
· Preparing a billing campaign is 100% manual: 9 working days for your 7 case officers, i.e. 441 hours per campaign.
The next step, and it takes half a day: you settle the wording of the consumption notice with me, and I send it on the day it is observed from the coming campaign onwards. The 214 past files are lost; next year's will not be. water-service-flow_26400-enquiries-12-topics.pdf19,800 enquiries across 12 topics, the three items costed, 3,430 hours identified
⛓ Sourced · 12 months of enquiry log, 59,600 readings over 24 months, service by-law, tariff resolution of 11 December 2025, article L. 2224-12-4 III bis
And I start with the figure that costs, because it cannot be recovered: out of the year's 640 leak files, 214 customers never received the notice the law requires. The text is unambiguous: « Failing the information […], the customer is not liable for payment of the share of consumption exceeding double the average consumption. » Those 214 files carry 22,500 m³ above the double — €38,700.00 at the drinking water variable rate, which you no longer have the right to bill, even with no plumber's certificate at all. This is not a penalty: it is the exact price of a letter that did not go out.
What the rest of the count says: 12 topics cover 19,800 enquiries out of 26,400, exactly three in four. Invoice amount, moving in, termination, meter index, monthly payment, payment methods, leaks and reductions, unexplained variances, water quality, new connections, off-mains sanitation, disconnection and reconnection. The 12 reference answers are written, sourced on your service by-law and on the tariff resolution of 11 December 2025, and dated.
What the three items you can check against your own logs are worth:
· Assessing a leak complaint takes 55 minutes, 60% of it spent gathering readings, history and by-law — 33 minutes.
· A new contract or termination file takes 28 minutes, 40% of it data entry and drafting — 11 minutes 12.
· Preparing a billing campaign is 100% manual: 9 working days for your 7 case officers, i.e. 441 hours per campaign.
The next step, and it takes half a day: you settle the wording of the consumption notice with me, and I send it on the day it is observed from the coming campaign onwards. The 214 past files are lost; next year's will not be. water-service-flow_26400-enquiries-12-topics.pdf19,800 enquiries across 12 topics, the three items costed, 3,430 hours identified
⛓ Sourced · 12 months of enquiry log, 59,600 readings over 24 months, service by-law, tariff resolution of 11 December 2025, article L. 2224-12-4 III bis
214 notices never sent is a lot. How do we make sure it does not happen again — and how do we spot the leak before the invoice rather than after?
With four rules, written in the language of your service by-law, and already run over your 59,600 readings from the last 24 months. For each one I give you the number of alerts produced, the share confirmed on examination, and what it lets through — you choose on figures:
· Rule A — consumption for the period exceeds double the average of the last three periods, the law's own threshold: 1,042 alerts over 24 months, 986 confirmed — 94.6%. The other 56 are genuine, explicable rises that clear with one phone call.
· Rule B — the reading is lower than the previous index: 318 alerts, 297 confirmed — 93.4%. The other 21 are meters replaced without the index being carried over.
· Rule C — zero consumption over two consecutive periods while the contract is active: 274 alerts, 251 confirmed — 91.6%. The other 23 are second homes genuinely unoccupied.
· Rule D — on your 6,258 smart meters, a non-zero night flow for seven consecutive nights: 386 alerts, 371 confirmed — 96.1%. It is your best rule, and the only one that sees the leak BEFORE the reading.
All four together: 2,020 alerts over 24 months, 1,905 confirmed — 94.3%.
And here is the measurement that does not flatter me, because you need it before you decide: the 371 leaks caught by rule D were spotted 118 days earlier on average, i.e. 21,889 m³ that did not go into the ground — €18,386.76 at your production cost of €0.84/m³. On your network yield, that is worth 0.4 of a point: 78.4% would become 78.8%. That is not what will lift your indicator — your 490,320 m³ of losses are on the network, not past the meter, and no billing rule will go and find them. What rule D really gives you is 371 customers who did not receive a three-figure invoice.
The next step I propose, and it is costed: rule D only covers 42% of your meter fleet. Extended to all of it, it would produce 919 alerts over 24 months instead of 386. I propose we compare, at the next campaign, the number of leak files among smart-metered customers and among the rest: that gap is what will say whether replacing the meters pays for itself. consumption-anomalies_4-rules-and-214-missing-notices.pdfThe 4 rules tested over 24 months, the 214 un-notified files, what rule D sees before the reading
⛓ Sourced · 59,600 readings over 24 months, smart metering log, 2025 annual price and quality report
· Rule A — consumption for the period exceeds double the average of the last three periods, the law's own threshold: 1,042 alerts over 24 months, 986 confirmed — 94.6%. The other 56 are genuine, explicable rises that clear with one phone call.
· Rule B — the reading is lower than the previous index: 318 alerts, 297 confirmed — 93.4%. The other 21 are meters replaced without the index being carried over.
· Rule C — zero consumption over two consecutive periods while the contract is active: 274 alerts, 251 confirmed — 91.6%. The other 23 are second homes genuinely unoccupied.
· Rule D — on your 6,258 smart meters, a non-zero night flow for seven consecutive nights: 386 alerts, 371 confirmed — 96.1%. It is your best rule, and the only one that sees the leak BEFORE the reading.
All four together: 2,020 alerts over 24 months, 1,905 confirmed — 94.3%.
And here is the measurement that does not flatter me, because you need it before you decide: the 371 leaks caught by rule D were spotted 118 days earlier on average, i.e. 21,889 m³ that did not go into the ground — €18,386.76 at your production cost of €0.84/m³. On your network yield, that is worth 0.4 of a point: 78.4% would become 78.8%. That is not what will lift your indicator — your 490,320 m³ of losses are on the network, not past the meter, and no billing rule will go and find them. What rule D really gives you is 371 customers who did not receive a three-figure invoice.
The next step I propose, and it is costed: rule D only covers 42% of your meter fleet. Extended to all of it, it would produce 919 alerts over 24 months instead of 386. I propose we compare, at the next campaign, the number of leak files among smart-metered customers and among the rest: that gap is what will say whether replacing the meters pays for itself. consumption-anomalies_4-rules-and-214-missing-notices.pdfThe 4 rules tested over 24 months, the 214 un-notified files, what rule D sees before the reading
⛓ Sourced · 59,600 readings over 24 months, smart metering log, 2025 annual price and quality report
You will be reading the consumption of 14,900 households, their addresses, their bank details. Where does all that go?
Nowhere outside your walls, and that is verifiable rather than promised.
Where I run: on a dedicated, isolated resource hosted in France, under French law, reserved to the Vallée du Cerneuil authority and to nobody else — or on a machine of your own if you prefer local inference, in which case nothing even leaves the network. No customer data is passed to a foreign service: exposure to the Cloud Act and FISA 702 is reduced accordingly, without location alone ruling it out — it is documented for the configuration chosen.
What I read, and what I cannot reach: I have read-only access to the customer file, the reading and smart-metering log, and the resolved tariff grid. I have no write access to the billing software: I produce files and draft letters, your case officer imports them. Direct debit mandates and bank details are open to me on a presence-absence basis only — I can see that a mandate exists, that it is signed and that it carries a legible IBAN; I cannot see the IBAN. That is all I need in order to tell a customer a document is missing, and article 5.1.c GDPR asks precisely that only what serves the purpose be exposed. Access is withdrawn with a word, and withdrawal takes effect within the second.
What you can show your data protection officer: every read is logged with its date, its reason and the contract concerned; every output carries the sources it was drawn from; and the record of processing activities is already written, legal basis by legal basis — public interest task for the public water service, article 6.1.e.
The next step I propose: a thirty-minute quarterly review in which I set out the access rights actually used and those that served no purpose — an unused right of access is a right to close, and I bring you the list rather than asking you for it. sovereign-framework_hosting-access-traceability.pdfWhere the data lives, who reads what, what is withdrawn with a word
✎ Framework · hosting architecture, access log, record of processing activities
Where I run: on a dedicated, isolated resource hosted in France, under French law, reserved to the Vallée du Cerneuil authority and to nobody else — or on a machine of your own if you prefer local inference, in which case nothing even leaves the network. No customer data is passed to a foreign service: exposure to the Cloud Act and FISA 702 is reduced accordingly, without location alone ruling it out — it is documented for the configuration chosen.
What I read, and what I cannot reach: I have read-only access to the customer file, the reading and smart-metering log, and the resolved tariff grid. I have no write access to the billing software: I produce files and draft letters, your case officer imports them. Direct debit mandates and bank details are open to me on a presence-absence basis only — I can see that a mandate exists, that it is signed and that it carries a legible IBAN; I cannot see the IBAN. That is all I need in order to tell a customer a document is missing, and article 5.1.c GDPR asks precisely that only what serves the purpose be exposed. Access is withdrawn with a word, and withdrawal takes effect within the second.
What you can show your data protection officer: every read is logged with its date, its reason and the contract concerned; every output carries the sources it was drawn from; and the record of processing activities is already written, legal basis by legal basis — public interest task for the public water service, article 6.1.e.
The next step I propose: a thirty-minute quarterly review in which I set out the access rights actually used and those that served no purpose — an unused right of access is a right to close, and I bring you the list rather than asking you for it. sovereign-framework_hosting-access-traceability.pdfWhere the data lives, who reads what, what is withdrawn with a word
✎ Framework · hosting architecture, access log, record of processing activities
Prepare the connections requested this week by new customers.
9 new contract files prepared, contracts completed — identity, supply point address, applicable tariff according to meter size and whether the property is connected to mains sanitation —, opening readings recorded and welcome letters with a monthly payment mandate attached. Two missing proofs of address flagged: the file of Mr Aurélien Vaneste, 4 chemin des Sorbiers in Boisserolles, and that of Ms Prisca Mandiargues, 17 rue du Gué in Cerneuil-le-Haut. The letter requesting the document is written, it names article 8 of your service by-law and it goes out with the welcome letter, in the same envelope.
The whole set awaits your approval before activation: 7 files are complete and compliant, 2 are waiting on a document. Nothing is activated, nothing is billed.
What checking at submission changes across the full year: your 4,530 document-bearing files — 1,240 move-ins, 1,190 terminations, 1,460 monthly payment sign-ups, 640 leak complaints — are checked today at the assessment stage, that is to say nine days too late. Run back through the control rule: 812 were incomplete — 17.9%. The connection lead time falls from 18 days to 5, because today's thirteen days are thirteen days of documents going back and forth.
And one category deserves to be singled out: 187 plumbing certificates out of 640 did not state the location of the leak or the date of repair — 29.2%. Yet those are exactly the two particulars article L. 2224-12-4 III bis requires: without them, your service is left having to justify a refusal, or granting on a shaky document. Flagged at submission, the certificate comes back complete in three days.
What this is worth in time: 2,430 contract and termination files a year, 11 minutes 12 of data entry and drafting brought down to 2 minutes 48 — 40% of the time on a file brought down to 10%, i.e. 340 hours given back to the service.
The next step I propose: pre-fill the opening reading from the smart meter where the property has one. Of your 1,240 move-ins, 521 involve a smart meter: the contradictory index is already known to the minute, and 84 opening-index disputes over 24 months all concerned manually read meters. new-contract-files_9-connections-and-document-checks.pdfThe 9 files line by line, the 2 missing documents, the year's 812 incomplete files
✎ Action · files ready for approval — the head of customer service approves · service by-law art. 8 · tariff resolution of 11 December 2025
The whole set awaits your approval before activation: 7 files are complete and compliant, 2 are waiting on a document. Nothing is activated, nothing is billed.
What checking at submission changes across the full year: your 4,530 document-bearing files — 1,240 move-ins, 1,190 terminations, 1,460 monthly payment sign-ups, 640 leak complaints — are checked today at the assessment stage, that is to say nine days too late. Run back through the control rule: 812 were incomplete — 17.9%. The connection lead time falls from 18 days to 5, because today's thirteen days are thirteen days of documents going back and forth.
And one category deserves to be singled out: 187 plumbing certificates out of 640 did not state the location of the leak or the date of repair — 29.2%. Yet those are exactly the two particulars article L. 2224-12-4 III bis requires: without them, your service is left having to justify a refusal, or granting on a shaky document. Flagged at submission, the certificate comes back complete in three days.
What this is worth in time: 2,430 contract and termination files a year, 11 minutes 12 of data entry and drafting brought down to 2 minutes 48 — 40% of the time on a file brought down to 10%, i.e. 340 hours given back to the service.
The next step I propose: pre-fill the opening reading from the smart meter where the property has one. Of your 1,240 move-ins, 521 involve a smart meter: the contradictory index is already known to the minute, and 84 opening-index disputes over 24 months all concerned manually read meters. new-contract-files_9-connections-and-document-checks.pdfThe 9 files line by line, the 2 missing documents, the year's 812 incomplete files
✎ Action · files ready for approval — the head of customer service approves · service by-law art. 8 · tariff resolution of 11 December 2025
The real problem is the phone. For the three weeks after billing, we simply stop picking up. One customer in three gets nothing.
4,720 calls out of 15,100 ring unanswered — 31.3%, and 3,480 of them fall in the three weeks after each billing run. This is not a quality-of-service problem, it is a timing problem: your 7 case officers face nine calls at once between 8:30 and 10:30.
What I take, and what I leave you: I pick up every call, I state in the first sentence that I am an artificial intelligence — article 50(1) of the EU AI Act has required this since 2 August 2026, and the customer can ask for a human at any moment —, and I handle end to end the 12 topics whose answers are approved. Anything outside those 12 goes to a case officer with the file already assembled: the contract, the last six readings, the last invoice, the payment plan in force if there is one, and the question asked word for word. Your case officer picks up knowing, instead of picking up and searching.
The arithmetic, and it is yours: the 12 topics account for 75.0% of the flow; 4,720 unanswered calls fall to 296, i.e. 4,424 more customers who get their answer — 3,190 of them at night, at the weekend or over lunch, when the authority is shut. Email, which today waits 11 days, goes back to 1 day.
And I reach them on the channels they already use: WhatsApp Business, the website chat and email, with no account to create and nothing to install. Your case officers talk to me from Microsoft Teams or their mailbox, without changing tools.
The figure that does not flatter me, and I publish it: of the 986 consumption notices I sent in the first half-year, 61 concerned a perfectly explicable rise — a pool filled, an extra occupant, a garden watered through the drought. 6.2% of customers alarmed for nothing. That is fixed: I now cross the period against the customer's own seasonal pattern over three years, and I describe the rise as SEASONAL rather than ABNORMAL when it recurs in the same quarter. In the second half-year: 9 alarming letters out of 986 — 0.9%.
But I want to be exact about what I changed: the notice still goes out in both cases, because the law leaves me no option of silence — article L. 2224-12-4 III bis requires notification as soon as the observation is made. What I corrected is the WORDING of the letter, not the fact of sending it. And just as well: it is that sending which cost you €38,700 last year when it did not happen. customer-channels_multichannel-desk-sms-measured-passages.pdfThe 12 topics handled end to end, how the rest is routed, the published rate of needless alarm
⛓ Sourced · 12 months of switchboard log, consumption notice log, article L. 2224-12-4 III bis
What I take, and what I leave you: I pick up every call, I state in the first sentence that I am an artificial intelligence — article 50(1) of the EU AI Act has required this since 2 August 2026, and the customer can ask for a human at any moment —, and I handle end to end the 12 topics whose answers are approved. Anything outside those 12 goes to a case officer with the file already assembled: the contract, the last six readings, the last invoice, the payment plan in force if there is one, and the question asked word for word. Your case officer picks up knowing, instead of picking up and searching.
The arithmetic, and it is yours: the 12 topics account for 75.0% of the flow; 4,720 unanswered calls fall to 296, i.e. 4,424 more customers who get their answer — 3,190 of them at night, at the weekend or over lunch, when the authority is shut. Email, which today waits 11 days, goes back to 1 day.
And I reach them on the channels they already use: WhatsApp Business, the website chat and email, with no account to create and nothing to install. Your case officers talk to me from Microsoft Teams or their mailbox, without changing tools.
The figure that does not flatter me, and I publish it: of the 986 consumption notices I sent in the first half-year, 61 concerned a perfectly explicable rise — a pool filled, an extra occupant, a garden watered through the drought. 6.2% of customers alarmed for nothing. That is fixed: I now cross the period against the customer's own seasonal pattern over three years, and I describe the rise as SEASONAL rather than ABNORMAL when it recurs in the same quarter. In the second half-year: 9 alarming letters out of 986 — 0.9%.
But I want to be exact about what I changed: the notice still goes out in both cases, because the law leaves me no option of silence — article L. 2224-12-4 III bis requires notification as soon as the observation is made. What I corrected is the WORDING of the letter, not the fact of sending it. And just as well: it is that sending which cost you €38,700 last year when it did not happen. customer-channels_multichannel-desk-sms-measured-passages.pdfThe 12 topics handled end to end, how the rest is routed, the published rate of needless alarm
⛓ Sourced · 12 months of switchboard log, consumption notice log, article L. 2224-12-4 III bis
And warning the customer before a leak runs for six months — is that possible? We have smart metering on part of the fleet.
Yes, and it is the best use you can make of your 6,258 smart meters.
What I propose, costed: a text message as soon as rule D fires — a non-zero night flow for seven consecutive nights. Over the year: 193 smart-metering alerts and 521 consumption notices at the reading, i.e. 714 messages, rebilled at the gateway's actual cost, with no margin. A text arrives on an ordinary handset: no email address, no account, no app and no data plan — it is the channel that reaches the customers a letter finds three weeks too late.
What the message contains, and nothing else: the fact that continuous consumption is being recorded, the action to take, and how to reach the service. Never an amount, never a volume, never a payment link, never an identifier. It is an outbound notification: the customer does not reply to it, they reach me on WhatsApp, the chat or email. The text does not replace the written notice required by article L. 2224-12-4 III bis: it precedes it, and the letter goes out all the same — it is the letter that is dated and enforceable.
What it is worth, on your own figures: 371 leaks seen 118 days earlier over 24 months, 21,889 m³ that did not go into the ground. I commit to the protocol, not to the result: at the next campaign we compare the average value of leak files among smart-metered customers and among the rest, and you decide on the gap.
And while we are here, the other end of the subject: your 1,480 « leak and reduction » enquiries and your 1,340 « understanding a variance » enquiries all come back to a text nobody understands first time. I have singled out the 5 passages of your service by-law that explain 68% of those enquiries — each one is quoted in its current wording, with the number of enquiries it triggers and what blocks reading: a cross-reference to an article, a passive turn of phrase, a technical term —, so that the decision is taken on the measurement and not on my word. For a plain-language version, pass this content to the Accessibility, Easy Read and Translation agent — a dedicated agent, and it is not part of what this agent includes: I prepare the passages, their measurement and the legal meaning to be preserved, and it is that agent which produces the adapted version. The version it returns, once approved by the service, will serve the chat, the counter, the certificate request letter and the back of the invoice — the same dated version on all four. customer-channels_multichannel-desk-sms-measured-passages.pdfThe text message word for word, the measurement protocol, the 5 passages singled out and their current wording
⛓ Sourced · 24 months of smart metering log, service by-law, 6,800 emails over the year
What I propose, costed: a text message as soon as rule D fires — a non-zero night flow for seven consecutive nights. Over the year: 193 smart-metering alerts and 521 consumption notices at the reading, i.e. 714 messages, rebilled at the gateway's actual cost, with no margin. A text arrives on an ordinary handset: no email address, no account, no app and no data plan — it is the channel that reaches the customers a letter finds three weeks too late.
What the message contains, and nothing else: the fact that continuous consumption is being recorded, the action to take, and how to reach the service. Never an amount, never a volume, never a payment link, never an identifier. It is an outbound notification: the customer does not reply to it, they reach me on WhatsApp, the chat or email. The text does not replace the written notice required by article L. 2224-12-4 III bis: it precedes it, and the letter goes out all the same — it is the letter that is dated and enforceable.
What it is worth, on your own figures: 371 leaks seen 118 days earlier over 24 months, 21,889 m³ that did not go into the ground. I commit to the protocol, not to the result: at the next campaign we compare the average value of leak files among smart-metered customers and among the rest, and you decide on the gap.
And while we are here, the other end of the subject: your 1,480 « leak and reduction » enquiries and your 1,340 « understanding a variance » enquiries all come back to a text nobody understands first time. I have singled out the 5 passages of your service by-law that explain 68% of those enquiries — each one is quoted in its current wording, with the number of enquiries it triggers and what blocks reading: a cross-reference to an article, a passive turn of phrase, a technical term —, so that the decision is taken on the measurement and not on my word. For a plain-language version, pass this content to the Accessibility, Easy Read and Translation agent — a dedicated agent, and it is not part of what this agent includes: I prepare the passages, their measurement and the legal meaning to be preserved, and it is that agent which produces the adapted version. The version it returns, once approved by the service, will serve the chat, the counter, the certificate request letter and the back of the invoice — the same dated version on all four. customer-channels_multichannel-desk-sms-measured-passages.pdfThe text message word for word, the measurement protocol, the 5 passages singled out and their current wording
⛓ Sourced · 24 months of smart metering log, service by-law, 6,800 emails over the year
A customer reports an abnormally high invoice and suspects a leak past the meter. Assess their request.
Request assessed. Consumption recorded: 187 m³ against 62 m³ on average over the last three periods — the threshold of double the average consumption, i.e. 124 m³, is exceeded by 63 m³, and the request falls within the leak arrangements of your service by-law as well as those of article L. 2224-12-4 III bis of the general local authorities code. Document required: the plumber's repair certificate.
Draft document request letter prepared; the decision on the reduction remains yours.
What the letter says, and what it saves you: the certificate must carry TWO particulars, and the article names them — where the leak was and the date of the repair. Across your 640 files last year, 187 certificates were missing one of them: this letter asks for both explicitly. It also states the one-month deadline running from the notification, and what the arrangement does not cover: leaks from household appliances and from sanitary or heating equipment, which the text expressly excludes. Saying so in the first letter spares this customer paying a plumber for a certificate that will serve no purpose.
The costing, already done, at the tariffs resolved on 11 December 2025:
· Invoice as it stands: €717.59.
· Invoice after capping at the double, i.e. 124 m³: €492.68.
· Difference: €224.91 — 63 m³ at €3.57 a cubic metre, water and sanitation shares and water agency levies included, under article 21 of your service by-law, which extends the capping to the sanitation share where the lost volume did not reach the collection network.
· Still payable after capping: €492.68, against €271.34 for this customer's ordinary invoice. Capping puts a ceiling on it, it does not wipe it — and it is for that gap that a payment plan makes sense. Draft plan attached: 4 monthly instalments of €123.17.
The timeline, and this is where it is decided: your assessment takes 34 days today, 12 of them just to notify the customer. With the anomaly caught when the reading is loaded and the notice sent the same day: 4 days. This is not merely convenience — it is the deadline that decides whether you keep the right to bill the 63 m³ or lose it.
Nothing is decided: the reduction and the payment plan are acts of the service. I hand you the complete file, costed, justified article by article — and the decision takes five minutes instead of a month. leak-file_187m3-against-62m3-capping-and-payment-plan.pdfThe capping calculated to the euro, the certificate request letter, the 4-instalment payment plan
⛓ Sourced · the customer's readings over 4 periods, service by-law art. 21, tariff resolution of 11 December 2025, article L. 2224-12-4 III bis
Draft document request letter prepared; the decision on the reduction remains yours.
What the letter says, and what it saves you: the certificate must carry TWO particulars, and the article names them — where the leak was and the date of the repair. Across your 640 files last year, 187 certificates were missing one of them: this letter asks for both explicitly. It also states the one-month deadline running from the notification, and what the arrangement does not cover: leaks from household appliances and from sanitary or heating equipment, which the text expressly excludes. Saying so in the first letter spares this customer paying a plumber for a certificate that will serve no purpose.
The costing, already done, at the tariffs resolved on 11 December 2025:
· Invoice as it stands: €717.59.
· Invoice after capping at the double, i.e. 124 m³: €492.68.
· Difference: €224.91 — 63 m³ at €3.57 a cubic metre, water and sanitation shares and water agency levies included, under article 21 of your service by-law, which extends the capping to the sanitation share where the lost volume did not reach the collection network.
· Still payable after capping: €492.68, against €271.34 for this customer's ordinary invoice. Capping puts a ceiling on it, it does not wipe it — and it is for that gap that a payment plan makes sense. Draft plan attached: 4 monthly instalments of €123.17.
The timeline, and this is where it is decided: your assessment takes 34 days today, 12 of them just to notify the customer. With the anomaly caught when the reading is loaded and the notice sent the same day: 4 days. This is not merely convenience — it is the deadline that decides whether you keep the right to bill the 63 m³ or lose it.
Nothing is decided: the reduction and the payment plan are acts of the service. I hand you the complete file, costed, justified article by article — and the decision takes five minutes instead of a month. leak-file_187m3-against-62m3-capping-and-payment-plan.pdfThe capping calculated to the euro, the certificate request letter, the 4-instalment payment plan
⛓ Sourced · the customer's readings over 4 periods, service by-law art. 21, tariff resolution of 11 December 2025, article L. 2224-12-4 III bis
And the billing campaign itself? That is nine days during which the service does nothing else.
Preparation complete on reading round no. 2 — 3,820 customers. 3,691 invoices ready, 129 lines put into checking by the four rules: they do not go out on invoices, they go to control.
The total billed, broken down to the euro: €972,698.00 — €183,350.00 of half-year standing charges on 3,667 contracts, €618.00 of pro rata standing charges on 24 movements, €391,128.00 of drinking water variable charge on 227,400 m³, €293,388.00 of sanitation variable charge on 212,600 m³, and €104,214.00 of water agency levies. The 2.1% variance against the previous half-year is explained in three lines — the resolved tariff revision, the 24 customer movements, and 2,510 m³ more on the meters. You will not have to hunt for where the variance came from: the named list of the 24 movements is attached.
Estimated readings, because that is where complaints are born: 412 customers could not be read — meter inaccessible, repeated absence. Each is estimated on their OWN average over the last three periods, never on a round average, and the invoice carries the word « estimate » together with the date of the last actual index. Over 24 months, 89% of complaints about estimates came from invoices that did not say they were estimates.
Monthly payment: 1,460 sign-ups this year, and each annual balance recalculated on the actual reading. 318 customers on monthly payment carry a debit balance above €150: their letter proposes an adjustment to the instalment rather than a bare demand, because a demand produces a complaint and an adjustment produces a payment.
What this is worth: 9 working days for seven today — 441 hours. Afterwards: 88 hours 12 of checking and approval, i.e. 20% of the current time, a little over two working days for seven. 352 hours 48 given back per campaign, 705 hours 36 over the year.
Nothing is issued: the billing file and the 3,691 letters await the named approval of the head of customer service, and I can undo the lot with a word for as long as nothing has gone out.
The next step I propose, and it is a question of dose: open the four rules on reading round no. 2 only, this campaign. 129 lines to examine, around 32 hours at fifteen minutes a line: that is bearable mid-campaign, whereas the four rules opened across all six rounds at once would produce 604 lines and cost 151 hours. Round no. 2 accounts for a quarter of your customers: it tells you what the four rules are worth here, without committing you on the other three quarters. billing-campaign_round-2-3820-customers.pdf3,691 invoices ready, the total broken down to the euro, the 412 estimates and the 318 payment balances
✎ Action · billing prepared — the head of customer service approves before issue · tariff resolution of 11 December 2025, service by-law
The total billed, broken down to the euro: €972,698.00 — €183,350.00 of half-year standing charges on 3,667 contracts, €618.00 of pro rata standing charges on 24 movements, €391,128.00 of drinking water variable charge on 227,400 m³, €293,388.00 of sanitation variable charge on 212,600 m³, and €104,214.00 of water agency levies. The 2.1% variance against the previous half-year is explained in three lines — the resolved tariff revision, the 24 customer movements, and 2,510 m³ more on the meters. You will not have to hunt for where the variance came from: the named list of the 24 movements is attached.
Estimated readings, because that is where complaints are born: 412 customers could not be read — meter inaccessible, repeated absence. Each is estimated on their OWN average over the last three periods, never on a round average, and the invoice carries the word « estimate » together with the date of the last actual index. Over 24 months, 89% of complaints about estimates came from invoices that did not say they were estimates.
Monthly payment: 1,460 sign-ups this year, and each annual balance recalculated on the actual reading. 318 customers on monthly payment carry a debit balance above €150: their letter proposes an adjustment to the instalment rather than a bare demand, because a demand produces a complaint and an adjustment produces a payment.
What this is worth: 9 working days for seven today — 441 hours. Afterwards: 88 hours 12 of checking and approval, i.e. 20% of the current time, a little over two working days for seven. 352 hours 48 given back per campaign, 705 hours 36 over the year.
Nothing is issued: the billing file and the 3,691 letters await the named approval of the head of customer service, and I can undo the lot with a word for as long as nothing has gone out.
The next step I propose, and it is a question of dose: open the four rules on reading round no. 2 only, this campaign. 129 lines to examine, around 32 hours at fifteen minutes a line: that is bearable mid-campaign, whereas the four rules opened across all six rounds at once would produce 604 lines and cost 151 hours. Round no. 2 accounts for a quarter of your customers: it tells you what the four rules are worth here, without committing you on the other three quarters. billing-campaign_round-2-3820-customers.pdf3,691 invoices ready, the total broken down to the euro, the 412 estimates and the 318 payment balances
✎ Action · billing prepared — the head of customer service approves before issue · tariff resolution of 11 December 2025, service by-law
How do we bring your four rules into service? And what if one of them starts flagging nonsense?
One at a time, each with its entry figure, and none starts without your signature.
The order I recommend, and the arithmetic behind it: rule D first — 96.1% confirmation, and above all the only one that sees the leak before the reading, therefore the only one that prevents the invoice instead of correcting it; then A, which carries the statutory threshold and triggers the notice that cost you €38,700 last year; then B and C. I advise against switching all four on the same day, and I cost it: the four together would produce 604 alerts on the first campaign, i.e. around 151 hours of examination at fifteen minutes a line, for your 7 case officers, mid-campaign. One per campaign is 29 hours the first time, and you keep control of what you look at.
What I watch for you, without being asked: the confirmed share of each rule, campaign after campaign. A rule that drops below 85% confirmation makes you examine customers for nothing: I warn you from the campaign concerned, with the tightened version already written and already run over the history, as I did for rule C — its first drafting, « zero consumption over one period », produced 742 alerts for 251 confirmed (33.8%); the version tightened to two consecutive periods produces 274 for the same 251 confirmed, no genuine case lost, 468 customers spared. It is the tightened version I am putting to you, not the first.
And withdrawal is as simple as go-live: a rule stops with a word, within the second, and the lines it had put into checking go back into billing with the reason and the date of the withdrawal. Nothing is blocked for good, nothing disappears. One exception, and it is not mine: the notice required by article L. 2224-12-4 III bis goes out as soon as consumption exceeds double the average, even with rule A switched off. That is not a safeguard I impose on myself — it is the condition on which you keep the right to bill the excess share. consumption-anomalies_4-rules-and-214-missing-notices.pdfThe go-live schedule, the tightened version of rule C, the withdrawal threshold
⛓ Sourced · 59,600 readings over 24 months, comparative measurement of the two draftings of rule C, article L. 2224-12-4 III bis
The order I recommend, and the arithmetic behind it: rule D first — 96.1% confirmation, and above all the only one that sees the leak before the reading, therefore the only one that prevents the invoice instead of correcting it; then A, which carries the statutory threshold and triggers the notice that cost you €38,700 last year; then B and C. I advise against switching all four on the same day, and I cost it: the four together would produce 604 alerts on the first campaign, i.e. around 151 hours of examination at fifteen minutes a line, for your 7 case officers, mid-campaign. One per campaign is 29 hours the first time, and you keep control of what you look at.
What I watch for you, without being asked: the confirmed share of each rule, campaign after campaign. A rule that drops below 85% confirmation makes you examine customers for nothing: I warn you from the campaign concerned, with the tightened version already written and already run over the history, as I did for rule C — its first drafting, « zero consumption over one period », produced 742 alerts for 251 confirmed (33.8%); the version tightened to two consecutive periods produces 274 for the same 251 confirmed, no genuine case lost, 468 customers spared. It is the tightened version I am putting to you, not the first.
And withdrawal is as simple as go-live: a rule stops with a word, within the second, and the lines it had put into checking go back into billing with the reason and the date of the withdrawal. Nothing is blocked for good, nothing disappears. One exception, and it is not mine: the notice required by article L. 2224-12-4 III bis goes out as soon as consumption exceeds double the average, even with rule A switched off. That is not a safeguard I impose on myself — it is the condition on which you keep the right to bill the excess share. consumption-anomalies_4-rules-and-214-missing-notices.pdfThe go-live schedule, the tightened version of rule C, the withdrawal threshold
⛓ Sourced · 59,600 readings over 24 months, comparative measurement of the two draftings of rule C, article L. 2224-12-4 III bis
The authority board wants a twelve-month report from me. What do I put in front of them?
Four figures, and each one checks out against your own logs — that is the only way to hold up in front of a board.
· 3,430 hours given back to the service over the year, item by item: 293 h on assessing leak complaints, 340 h on contract and termination files, 705 h on the two billing campaigns, 2,091 h on routine enquiries. At 1,607 hours to a working year, that is more than two working years given back to your nine staff. No post cut, no post created: it is time given back to operations, to new connections and to the customers who need a person in front of them.
· 4,720 unanswered calls down to 296, email from 11 days to 1 day, leak assessment from 34 days to 4, connection from 18 days to 5.
· 0 missing consumption notices, where 214 had never been sent — and therefore €0 lost under article L. 2224-12-4 III bis, against €38,700 the previous year.
· 0 reductions granted by the machine, 0 payment plans granted without a decision, 0 tariffs changed, 0 water disconnections initiated.
What I bring you on top, and what will be waiting for you every year: your annual report on the price and quality of the service — the one required by article L. 2224-5 of the general local authorities code, to be presented within nine months of the close of the financial year — draws in part on data I already keep up to date. Nine indicators are extracted, dated, with the query that produces each of them: the volumes, the distribution network yield (P104.3), the linear index of unmetered volumes (P105.3), the linear index of network losses (P106.3), the connection lead time and the enquiry flow. A board member who asks where a figure comes from gets the answer in the chamber. The report itself stays written and presented by you: it is an act of the chair, not a machine output.
The next step I propose for the year ahead: your 78.4% yield will not be lifted by billing — your 490,320 m³ of losses are on the network. What I can do is give you the material: the cross-reference, sector by sector, between the linear index of losses and the leak-past-the-meter files, across your 842 km. If the two overlap, your problem is at the customers' end; if they diverge, it is in your pipes, and it is renewal that needs deciding, not meter reading. That is a question I can work up, not an answer I can promise. year-in-review_3430-hours-item-by-item.pdfThe 3,430 hours in detail, the lead times held, the 9 annual-report indicators
⛓ Sourced · 12 months of service logs, customer file, reading log, 2025 annual price and quality report
· 3,430 hours given back to the service over the year, item by item: 293 h on assessing leak complaints, 340 h on contract and termination files, 705 h on the two billing campaigns, 2,091 h on routine enquiries. At 1,607 hours to a working year, that is more than two working years given back to your nine staff. No post cut, no post created: it is time given back to operations, to new connections and to the customers who need a person in front of them.
· 4,720 unanswered calls down to 296, email from 11 days to 1 day, leak assessment from 34 days to 4, connection from 18 days to 5.
· 0 missing consumption notices, where 214 had never been sent — and therefore €0 lost under article L. 2224-12-4 III bis, against €38,700 the previous year.
· 0 reductions granted by the machine, 0 payment plans granted without a decision, 0 tariffs changed, 0 water disconnections initiated.
What I bring you on top, and what will be waiting for you every year: your annual report on the price and quality of the service — the one required by article L. 2224-5 of the general local authorities code, to be presented within nine months of the close of the financial year — draws in part on data I already keep up to date. Nine indicators are extracted, dated, with the query that produces each of them: the volumes, the distribution network yield (P104.3), the linear index of unmetered volumes (P105.3), the linear index of network losses (P106.3), the connection lead time and the enquiry flow. A board member who asks where a figure comes from gets the answer in the chamber. The report itself stays written and presented by you: it is an act of the chair, not a machine output.
The next step I propose for the year ahead: your 78.4% yield will not be lifted by billing — your 490,320 m³ of losses are on the network. What I can do is give you the material: the cross-reference, sector by sector, between the linear index of losses and the leak-past-the-meter files, across your 842 km. If the two overlap, your problem is at the customers' end; if they diverge, it is in your pipes, and it is renewal that needs deciding, not meter reading. That is a question I can work up, not an answer I can promise. year-in-review_3430-hours-item-by-item.pdfThe 3,430 hours in detail, the lead times held, the 9 annual-report indicators
⛓ Sourced · 12 months of service logs, customer file, reading log, 2025 annual price and quality report
In practice, what does the agent do without asking us? That is the question the board will ask.
Three actions, not one more, and all three can be undone.
· I send the consumption anomaly notice on the day it is observed, in the wording you have settled. It is the one action I recommend you never switch off, and the reason is not mine: article L. 2224-12-4 III bis strips the service of the right to bill the excess share when the notice was not given. And the reverse is true too: you take back control of sending with a word, round by round or entirely — but the counter of notices NOT sent stays on screen, with the euros beside it, because it is that counter which prices what silence costs.
· I acknowledge any complaint within the minute, naming the document required and the two particulars it must carry. And the reverse is true too: if the customer writes to say they were mistaken, the file closes without any letter going out, and it stays in the statistics — because it is that statistic which will tell you which passage of the by-law reads badly.
· I put into checking any billing line that triggers one of the live rules. And the reverse is true too: the case officer sets it aside with a word, the line goes back into billing, with the reason and the date it was set aside — which gives you, at the next campaign, the list of the most frequent reasons, and therefore the rules to tighten.
Everything else waits for a named decision: no reduction is granted, no payment plan is agreed, no invoice is issued, no tariff is touched, no water disconnection is initiated, no contract is terminated on the authority's own motion.
A word on a measurement I can produce and would advise you not to install as it stands: the number of files handled per case officer. I know how to calculate it, and I will produce it if you ask — a public employer's power to monitor is recognised, subject to three cumulative conditions, as the CNIL sets them out in its guidance on monitoring the activity of employed persons: proportionality of the indicator to the aim pursued, prior information of staff, and consultation of the local social committee before implementation. My reservation is not legal, it is mechanical: a per-officer counter becomes a target, the target distorts the triage, and the long files — a disputed leak, an estate, a jointly owned building — get pushed back in favour of the short ones. Yet the long files are precisely the ones that turn into unpaid debt. What I propose instead, and it is already prepared: measurement by QUEUE — lead time, backlog, rework rate — which tells you where it jams without telling you who. One exception, and it is not really one: whoever signs a reduction decision is named and dated. A signature is not a counter. automatic-actions_three-acts-and-their-withdrawal.pdfThe 3 actions, how each is undone, what stays with a human decision
✎ Framework · settings for the automatic actions, withdrawal log, conditions for implementing an individual indicator
· I send the consumption anomaly notice on the day it is observed, in the wording you have settled. It is the one action I recommend you never switch off, and the reason is not mine: article L. 2224-12-4 III bis strips the service of the right to bill the excess share when the notice was not given. And the reverse is true too: you take back control of sending with a word, round by round or entirely — but the counter of notices NOT sent stays on screen, with the euros beside it, because it is that counter which prices what silence costs.
· I acknowledge any complaint within the minute, naming the document required and the two particulars it must carry. And the reverse is true too: if the customer writes to say they were mistaken, the file closes without any letter going out, and it stays in the statistics — because it is that statistic which will tell you which passage of the by-law reads badly.
· I put into checking any billing line that triggers one of the live rules. And the reverse is true too: the case officer sets it aside with a word, the line goes back into billing, with the reason and the date it was set aside — which gives you, at the next campaign, the list of the most frequent reasons, and therefore the rules to tighten.
Everything else waits for a named decision: no reduction is granted, no payment plan is agreed, no invoice is issued, no tariff is touched, no water disconnection is initiated, no contract is terminated on the authority's own motion.
A word on a measurement I can produce and would advise you not to install as it stands: the number of files handled per case officer. I know how to calculate it, and I will produce it if you ask — a public employer's power to monitor is recognised, subject to three cumulative conditions, as the CNIL sets them out in its guidance on monitoring the activity of employed persons: proportionality of the indicator to the aim pursued, prior information of staff, and consultation of the local social committee before implementation. My reservation is not legal, it is mechanical: a per-officer counter becomes a target, the target distorts the triage, and the long files — a disputed leak, an estate, a jointly owned building — get pushed back in favour of the short ones. Yet the long files are precisely the ones that turn into unpaid debt. What I propose instead, and it is already prepared: measurement by QUEUE — lead time, backlog, rework rate — which tells you where it jams without telling you who. One exception, and it is not really one: whoever signs a reduction decision is named and dated. A signature is not a counter. automatic-actions_three-acts-and-their-withdrawal.pdfThe 3 actions, how each is undone, what stays with a human decision
✎ Framework · settings for the automatic actions, withdrawal log, conditions for implementing an individual indicator
And the day a customer disputes their reduction saying the machine decided it?
That day, you produce four items and the dispute settles on facts.
One — the calculation: the four readings underpinning the average, their date and index, the double as calculated, the excess volume, and the article of the resolution of 11 December 2025 that sets each tariff applied. No consumption above double the average goes out on an invoice until the customer has been informed on the day it is observed, and the information is dated: that is the rule we have held since the first campaign, and it is what makes the invoice enforceable.
Two — the notice, and its date: the date the article L. 2224-12-4 III bis notice was sent, how it was sent, and its exact wording. It is the decisive item, and for a reason the customer often does not know: failing that notice, the text finds for them automatically. Over the year, 100% of notices were sent on the day of observation — and the log shows it line by line.
Three — who decided: the name of the officer who signed the reduction, the date and time, and the ground relied on. No reduction was granted by the machine: I assess, a person decides. 640 files, 640 named decisions.
Four — what the customer had been told, and when: I stated that I am an artificial intelligence in the first sentence of every exchange, in line with article 50(1) of the EU AI Act, applicable since 2 August 2026, and the customer could ask for a human at any moment — 1,326 did so over the year, and all 1,326 got one.
And if they want to see what you hold on them: the access file is produced in a minute — contract, readings, invoices, letters, payment plan, and the log of the reads I made of their file with the reason for each. That is the right of access under article 15 GDPR, and the usual difficulty is gathering the pieces: they are already gathered.
The next step I propose: an annual thirty-minute review with your data protection officer, where I bring you the access rights that served no purpose over the year and the retention periods that have run out. You decide what to close and what to erase; I bring you the list rather than waiting to be asked for it. sovereign-framework_hosting-access-traceability.pdfWhat you produce on the day of a dispute: the calculation, the dated notice, the signatory, the disclosure
✎ Framework · consumption notice log, reduction decision log, AI disclosure log, record of processing activities
One — the calculation: the four readings underpinning the average, their date and index, the double as calculated, the excess volume, and the article of the resolution of 11 December 2025 that sets each tariff applied. No consumption above double the average goes out on an invoice until the customer has been informed on the day it is observed, and the information is dated: that is the rule we have held since the first campaign, and it is what makes the invoice enforceable.
Two — the notice, and its date: the date the article L. 2224-12-4 III bis notice was sent, how it was sent, and its exact wording. It is the decisive item, and for a reason the customer often does not know: failing that notice, the text finds for them automatically. Over the year, 100% of notices were sent on the day of observation — and the log shows it line by line.
Three — who decided: the name of the officer who signed the reduction, the date and time, and the ground relied on. No reduction was granted by the machine: I assess, a person decides. 640 files, 640 named decisions.
Four — what the customer had been told, and when: I stated that I am an artificial intelligence in the first sentence of every exchange, in line with article 50(1) of the EU AI Act, applicable since 2 August 2026, and the customer could ask for a human at any moment — 1,326 did so over the year, and all 1,326 got one.
And if they want to see what you hold on them: the access file is produced in a minute — contract, readings, invoices, letters, payment plan, and the log of the reads I made of their file with the reason for each. That is the right of access under article 15 GDPR, and the usual difficulty is gathering the pieces: they are already gathered.
The next step I propose: an annual thirty-minute review with your data protection officer, where I bring you the access rights that served no purpose over the year and the retention periods that have run out. You decide what to close and what to erase; I bring you the list rather than waiting to be asked for it. sovereign-framework_hosting-access-traceability.pdfWhat you produce on the day of a dispute: the calculation, the dated notice, the signatory, the disclosure
✎ Framework · consumption notice log, reduction decision log, AI disclosure log, record of processing activities
Local inference · no data outside the EU
Your case is not here? That is exactly what a 15-minute conversation is for. Book the free audit →
Use cases
The uses of AI in a water and sanitation department
Each use corresponds to an agent we deploy. All work in support, subject to the department officer's approval.
Included in your agent
The 5 capabilities essential to this promise are included, at no extra cost.
From 885 € incl. VAT / month
Accounts & closures
Handle accounts, connections, closures and changes of circumstances, with files ready to approve.
Preparing the billing
Prepare the billing from the readings and estimates (including monthly instalments) and the associated letters.
Leak complaints & rebates
Assess complaints (leaks, excess consumption) against your service rules — the decision stays with the department.
Checking the documents in a file
Check proofs of address, repair certificates and mandates, and flag what is missing.
Detecting consumption anomalies
Spot discrepancies in readings and atypical consumption and flag them for a human check. The subscriber can be alerted by text message, with no amount and no payment link in it.
Controls and safeguards
These 4 controls are built into the agent: they frame what it does, whatever plan you pick. They are not chosen and are not added to your order.
Human validation, exceptions and escalation
Status, safe closure and audit trail
Sources, access rights and handling of questions with no answer
Maintain validation, transparency, audit trail and recourse
What the agent must be connected to
This connection is required for the agent to work. It concerns your information system and is scoped during the audit.
Integrate with authorised tools and the existing sovereign foundation
Other needs our agents cover
Each card says where the matching agent stands: available, on quote, or still being architected.
Accessibility and inclusion
To produce a plain-language version, prepare an easy-read transcript to the FALC method, translate or voice your content, this agent can be paired with the Accessibility and inclusion agent. None of these capabilities is included in what this offer covers as standard.
On quote View the agent page →Need to go further?
These agents handle a different business process, with their own owner and their own price. They are added to this one.
Debt collection agent (multichannel sequences)
Follow-ups, tracking.
Debt collection agent (multichannel sequences) from 587 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →Support for collecting social contributions
Strictly in support (administrative). Reminders prepared, approved by the officer.
Support for collecting social contributions from 1,020 € incl. VAT / month Discover the agent →
Does your need fall outside this?
Book the free audit →
Build your agent
In 15 minutes we identify the agent that will give your staff the most time back — without oversizing the project.
The gain
How much time can a water department win back?
By automating account management, the preparation of billing and the assessment of complaints, a department can aim for a clear reduction in handling time per file — reinvested in the relationship with customers and the quality of the service.
Assessing a leak complaint
An account file for a new customer
Preparing a billing round
Qualitative, non-contractual comparison: the proportions shown illustrate the shift of the work towards review, they represent no measurement. Every output of the agent is reviewed and approved by a competent person.
How it works
The stages of your AI agent project
1
Audit & scoping
15 minutes to target the use case with the best return.
2
Quote or direct sign-up
A catalogue offer is bought online; a specific need gets a costed quote.
3
Design
We design the agent and its guardrails.
4
Integration & testing
We connect your tools to the agent, which is itself hosted in France.
5
Rollout
Going live and training your team.
6
Operation
Continuous supervision and improvement.
Pricing
Three options, one agent
An agent for managing water and sanitation customers (accounts, billing, complaints), installed and operated for you. Choose according to how you are organised and how demanding your security requirements are.
Agility
Setup + controlled subscription
10,245 € incl. VAT setup
then 885 € incl. VAT/month — you invest at installation and pay a reduced subscription. Ideal for keeping the cost under control over time.
- Installation, configuration and training for your teams
- Operation, human oversight, updates and support
- Sovereign hosting in France, a dedicated and isolated resource
The simplest
Serenity
All inclusive, no setup fee
1,455 € incl. VAT /month
all inclusive, immediate start. No upfront investment: a single subscription. Ideal for starting quickly and simply.
- Setup included (installation, configuration, training)
- Operation, human oversight, updates and support
- Sovereign hosting in France, managed end to end
100% Sovereign
On site, you own it
14,566 € incl. VAT setup
then 1,125 € incl. VAT/month · + hardware from 2,989 € (one-off purchase, in addition) — a sovereign computer installed on your premises, maintained remotely. Models run locally, your data returned at the end of the contract. 36-month commitment.
- Hardware installed on your premises (you own it)
- French / European AI models run locally
- Secure remote maintenance (Pro support included)
Not included in the packages: AI consumption (model tokens), re-invoiced at real cost with no margin, and tracked in real time in your client area. Maintenance and supervision subscription for an initial term of 12 months for the Agility package, 24 months for the Serenity package and 36 months for the 100% Sovereign package, renewable; support levels (SLA 72 h / 24 h / 4 h) optional. Bespoke development, additional integrations or exceptional volumes are quoted separately. Support Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm. Prices include VAT at 20%: as a public body that is not VAT-registered, you cannot reclaim it.
AI model:
none of the AI models offered currently carries a fixed surcharge. When the selected model carries a cost, that cost is shown when you choose it, before you order, and re-invoiced at the cost incurred, with no mark-up; usage is billed at the publisher's price. Publishers' prices are published in US dollars: the amount re-invoiced is the amount in euros actually borne by Blue Lemon Agent on the publisher's invoice, at that invoice's exchange rate, with no commission or mark-up.
Included components and additional components Components included in the base offer: the Blue Lemon Agent software foundation, the AI models listed in the order journey, the standard channels (Microsoft Teams, Slack, WhatsApp Business, email, website chat, calendars, Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace, file storage, market VoIP telephony, professional social-media pages and accounts, Google Business Profile), hosting in France for the package chosen, backups, supervision, updates and support. If adapting the AI agent to your constraints, your needs or your requests requires other paid components — a third-party publisher's software licence, paid API access to one of your applications, hosting of health data, for which French law requires an HDS-certified host (art. L. 1111-8 of the French Public Health Code), SecNumCloud-qualified hosting, a speech synthesis service, particular hardware —, they are offered to you as an option or on quotation and re-invoiced at the cost incurred; nothing is committed without your written agreement. Where the artificial intelligence model you choose entails an additional cost, that cost is shown to you before you order and re-invoiced to you at the cost incurred, with no margin.
What to expect
Go-live
2 to 3 weeks
Agent designed, channels connected, team trained.
Steady state
4 to 7 weeks
After a few weeks of real use, once the agent's behaviour matches what you expect.
Indicative estimate, adjusted to the options you keep. It is not a delivery commitment.
Our commitment
Four guarantees that matter to a water department
Customers' data never leaves the departmentLocal inference or an isolated resource hosted in France; no data entrusted to a foreign third party.
Data in France, under French lawExposure of customers' data to the Cloud Act and FISA 702 is reduced by design, that data being located and minimised in France; location alone does not guarantee immunity.
The department keeps the decisionThe AI agent assesses against your service rules; rebates, payment plans and what follows remain acts of the department.
Human oversight & traceabilityMonitoring, updates and logging frame the accounts & closures, in line with the AI Act.
Frequently asked questions
Your questions, our answers
Does the agent decide on rebates?
No: it pre-assesses and prepares; the decision (rebate, payment plan) remains the officer's.
Is customers' data protected?
Yes: hosting in France, a resource isolated for each authority. GDPR: governed deployment.
Does the agent grant a leak rebate?
It assesses the request and prepares the decision against your service rules; granting it remains an act of the department.
Does it handle several rates and authorities?
Yes: it adapts to your rate tables and to the areas defined at the design stage.
How long does it take to deploy an agent?
A few weeks as a rule, after a free audit that identifies the most useful use case, then a phase of design, integration and testing before going live.
Do we need a technical team to run it?
No: the agent is designed, installed and operated by us. The department's teams use it from their usual environment, after a few hours of familiarisation.
Do we have to change our customer management software?
No. The agent complements your existing customer management software, with no migration imposed. The integration is defined at the design stage.
Which tools can users use to reach the agent?
The ones they already have. The agent answers on WhatsApp Business, the website chat and email: users have no account to create and no application to install. This is a lever for access to the service — WhatsApp and the telephone reach people an online form never does, which reduces the non-take-up of rights and serves equal access. Internally, your public-sector staff talk to the agent from Microsoft Teams, Slack or their email, without switching tools. Oversight runs from a web dashboard. These connectors rely on open standards, including the MCP protocol; they are included in every plan, at no extra cost, within the number of connections your level includes. Only the fees charged by the platforms themselves — WhatsApp Business bills per conversation, and the gateway bills the text messages sent — are passed on at actual cost, with no margin, outside the subscription.
Can the agent notify subscribers by text message?
Yes, as an option — and it is the channel that reaches the people the others never do. A text message arrives on an ordinary phone: no email address, no account, no app, no data plan and no smartphone. Announcing by text message a water shut-off, work on the network or an unusual consumption to be checked means fewer entitlements going unclaimed and more equal access to the service. It is an outbound notification channel, not a conversation channel: users do not write to the agent there — they reach you on WhatsApp Business, the website chat or email. The message announces without detailing — never the reason, never the detail of the situation — and never contains a payment link, a login or a password: users reach the service the way they usually do. Delivery goes through a gateway established in the European Union; the messages sent are passed on at actual cost, with no margin, and the channel itself is an optional module, set out on the pricing page.
Related roles
Other professions in local public services
Let's talk
Let us estimate the potential in your authority
A few minutes to identify the most useful use case — hosted in France, supervised, with no commitment.