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Utility Affordability Has Become a Customer Experience Imperative

By Heather Siebken, Director, Councils & Marketing | 3-minute read

For many utilities, affordability challenges are exposing how well the organization is aligned around the customer. Supporting customers experiencing financial hardship requires coordination across customer experience, billing, collections, operations, technology, communications, and customer programs. Yet many utilities continue to manage affordability through individual functions, creating disconnected experiences for customers and additional complexity for employees.

When affordability support is fragmented, customers may encounter different processes depending on where they enter the organization. Contact centers may see rising call volumes without visibility into available solutions. Collections teams may focus on account recovery without insight into broader customer circumstances. Program teams may offer valuable support without a direct connection to the moments when customers need it most.

During a recent webinar hosted by Tara Mondelli, Vice President of Client Success at KUBRA, she explored how utility leaders are rethinking affordability as an enterprise customer experience priority. Joined by Chartwell’s Research Manager, Casey Collins, and Vulnerable Customer Consultant, Pat Ricks, the discussion highlighted the shift from affordability as a collections issue to affordability as a cross-functional business priority.

KUBRA framed the conversation around four “trust-defining moments” in the customer journey: awareness, communication, self-service, and payment. Each represents an opportunity for utilities to either strengthen customer confidence or create additional friction, especially during moments when customers are experiencing financial stress.

Chartwell research1 reinforces the importance of these interactions. Among lower-income households surveyed, as many as 40-50% reported being unaware of utility assistance offerings. This demonstrates the importance of ensuring the entire organization is aligned around how customers discover, access, and experience that support.

Affordability challenges often highlight broader organizational opportunities: disconnected systems, unclear ownership, inconsistent processes, and customer journeys designed around internal structures rather than customer needs.

Affordability Impacts Every Department

One of the strongest themes emerging across the industry is that affordability cannot be owned by a single department.

Customer experience teams are seeing increased contact volumes, longer interactions, and more complex customer needs. Billing and collections teams are navigating changing payment behaviors and rising account complexity. Finance teams are balancing customer support with revenue requirements. Operations teams face additional manual processes and workflow challenges. Technology teams are being asked to enable new capabilities while maintaining security, compliance, and reliability.

The challenge, rather opportunity, is ensuring the organization can effectively deliver, coordinate, and measure the impact of those programs.

Chartwell’s Powering Forward Brief

Utilities looking to strengthen their affordability strategy should focus on:

  1. Create enterprise ownership. Move affordability beyond billing and collections by aligning customer experience, operations, finance, technology, and customer care teams around shared outcomes.
  2. Map the affordability journey. Identify every customer touchpoint, from the first signs of payment difficulty through resolution, to uncover gaps, duplication, and unnecessary friction.
  3. Define affordability success metrics. Measure more than collections performance by tracking customer outcomes, program effectiveness, repeat arrears, and service continuity.
  4. Connect systems and teams. Reduce fragmented experiences by improving data sharing, workflows, and visibility across departments.
  5. Design for moments that matter. Focus on the interactions where customer trust is most impacted, including communication, payment, and support conversations.

Affordability is becoming a core component of how utilities deliver customer experience, build trust, and operate effectively in a changing environment.

1Requires Insight Center Membership

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Heather Siebken is a product and marketing leader and customer experience expert with more than 25 years of experience driving innovation, customer engagement, and strategic growth. She currently leads councils and marketing at Chartwell, where she designs industry forums and content that help utilities establish a customer experience strategy to navigate customer expectations and digital transformation.

Previously, Heather led product development and marketing at Omaha Public Power District, where she oversaw a broad portfolio of customer energy solutions spanning energy efficiency, demand response, electrification, and customer assistance programs. She is known for her strategic foresight, storytelling, and ability to translate complex trends into actionable business outcomes.