Top Billing and Payment Initiatives: Arrears Management and Customer Payment Options
29% of residential utility consumers with household incomes less than $50k indicated they had paid a power bill late in the past year to prioritize other bills, and with 23% needing assistance or payment terms, energy assistance continues to be a key focus for utilities.
As LIHEAP funds are cut, utilities are preparing to ramp up arrears management, and fully 91% of utilities indicated in an April Billing and Payment Leadership Council poll that arrears management was a major initiative planned in the short-term. Utilities identified two other initiatives to assist customers in budgeting utility payments, pick-your-due-date and levelized billing as top initiatives planned in the near term.
In the spring meeting, Billing and Payment Leadership Council members shared the following recent successes in implementing strategies to help manage arrearages:
Top billing and payment strategies shared by utilities:
- Implementation of Meter to Cash Analytics and creating propensity models to increase collections
- Use of RPA to reduce delayed billing volumes
- Improving the IVR payment assistance path
- Reducing the number of delayed bills
- Pick Your Due Date implementations and levelized billing
- Implementing high bill alerts
Billing and Payment Leadership Council members can download the full meeting deck and watch the recording here: Spring Virtual Meeting – April 2025.
To learn more about the Chartwell Billing and Payment Leadership Council, please contact Tim Herrick.
