One of the most common misconceptions about utility billing software is that it serves as a basic payment processing system for your business. Utility billing software is, in fact, an important aspect of your utility's operation. Not only does having the best water billing software help you collect money, but it's also an important part of the customer's experience and happiness.
Customers in North America rely on water for survival, but that doesn't mean they don't want a world-class customer experience (CX) from their utility providers. Customers, in fact, expect water utility software to be simple to use and to save them time.
With the correct water utility billing software, you can give your customers access to a variety of options that will boost consumer engagement and happiness. Billing and payment solutions, customer self-service, and field management are three major features in utility bill software that can help both your utility personnel and your customers.
These important features in utility bill software will help your organisation provide excellent customer care while also increasing productivity.
Billing and Payment - A necessity
Utilities typically use a variety of contractors for bill creation, payment processing, printing, and mailing services. This necessitates the integration of multiple data systems, resulting in an inefficient and disorganised user experience for both the utility and its customers. The most efficient choice for today's utilities is to select a single vendor capable of smoothly integrating payment and billing technologies. The ability to integrate diverse billing tasks into a single platform improves operational efficiency, reduces the risk of error, and increases revenue.
Customers may obtain real-time account information that is exact and detailed, and customer support agents can access up-to-date account information. Customers can also benefit from the security and peace of mind that Payment Card Industry (PCI) compatible payment methods, such as text to pay automated payments and retail kiosks, give.
Self Service
Customers need flexible self-service choices that combine contemporary technology and are simple to use in order to improve customer service and happiness.
Customers expect to be able to access their accounts via a laptop, computer, or even a mobile phone now that 85 percent of Americans own asmartphone.(https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/) Utilities must be able to react to this requirement in order to keep their clients. The user experience must include easy access to consumption data and account information available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Customers require the ability to pay their bills, review their usage history, and access critical information all in one place.
Utilities can profit from automated customer service in two ways. The switch to electronic communications and self-service offerings lowers the cost of serving as well as the cost of labour. While resolving more sophisticated account issues, utility customer service agents (CSRs) are able to devote more time to establishing trust with their consumers. Utility billing software also aids in the reduction of bad debt and improves the collection process by simplifying auto-payment and enhancing revenue and cash flow.
Advanced Metering Infrastructure - The future
When linked with the utilities building programme, advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) benefits both your clients and your company. According to the US Department of Energy, AMI is an acronym for "Assist "provides a number of critical tasks that were previously unavailable or required user intervention, such as the capacity to remotely and automatically assess power usage, connect and terminate service, and detect tampering. It can also detect and distinguish outages, as well as monitor voltage."
AMI results in more precise measurement of usage, which results in more precise billing. It also reduces the Costs of labor. As an added advantage it also ensures speedy and timely dispatch of repair teams for service needs. You also get automatic alerts, status and updates to utility, field technicians and customers.
Given the apparent benefits of switching to AMI, It's unsurprising that the number of utility firms investing continues to rise. However, only a few billing systems are capable of handling the large increase of data collected by the metres. Utilities should make sure they have a billing system in place that can handle this volume of data and efficiently convert it into billables for consumers without disrupting other activities.
Artificial intelligence - A personal assistant
As technology evolves, so do payments. Chatbots are appearing everywhere and allowing customers to talk to each other naturally on channels such as Facebook Messenger and Amazon Alexa to view account balances and pay for bills. A reputable AI assistant can provide not only the payment methods customers want now, but also readily adapt to the payment methods in the near future.
Do you have billing software for water that has the functionality that clients want?
Customers want to be able to do things quickly and easily. They also want to have control over how they use utility services. Implementing features like the ones outlined above will go a long way toward enhancing consumer satisfaction on a worldwide basis.
