Industry expert Gary Sanders has partnered together with MuniBilling to help give readers an in-depth look into the world of Utility Billing Systems.
For today's Ask The Expert blog we'll be focusing on how to control expenses in the customer cycle. Learn how to where to best cut out unnecessary expenses for more cost efficient options!
So Gary, what exactly do you mean by controlling expenses in the customer cycle?
There are many points in the process of billing and collecting for utilities where costs can be reduced.
In some cases, this can happen by taking advantage of technology to reduce labor costs. In others it might mean encouraging, or even enticing, your customers to change behaviors.
How would we go about changing our customer's behavior then?
Without giving away the entire webinar (to which you can sign up here for), here’s one example. An area where prices are increasing rapidly is postage. Unlike other products and services, comparing prices from other vendors doesn’t work with a monopoly like the US Postal Service.
If you could encourage more of your customers to switch from receiving a paper bill to receiving their bill electronically, think of how much you could save not only in postage, but also in paper and consumables.
What would be some other ways to control expenses?
An often-overlooked expense is the time it takes to process cash and check payments. I frequently hear utilities justify charging a convenience fee for credit cards by using the rationale “It’s not fair to all of our customers to bear the cost of those who want to pay using a credit card.”
What that reasoning overlooks is the fact that online credit card payments require very little staff time to process. Compare this to the amount of time involved in picking up mail from the post office, opening the mail and matching bill stubs with checks, entering the payments, making a bank deposit, and taking the deposit to the bank.
If you could encourage more customers to take advantage of online payments, think about the savings you would see in labor costs alone.
Operational Analysis
Gary's 40+ years of experience in the industry has granted him valuable knowledge for any billing entity. With the wealth of his knowledge you can request an Operational Analysis for your organization from him!
You may be wondering, what exactly is an Operational Analysis? Well, it essentially is when Gary looks through ALL of your systems, and interviews your team, to figure out how best you can improve your billing operations.
Here are a few of your organization's systems that Gary will assess:
- Billing System
- Accounting System
- Metering System
- Service Delivery System
The end goal with this analysis is to figure out how to best save your organization time and money. This could also mean suggesting another company's platform if it's the better fit for YOU.
Gary has hosted his own blog for the past ten years. Some of his more notable credentials is that he has designed, built, implemented, and supported both ERPs and Utility Billing Systems. Thankfully, he's only a hop, skip, and jump away.
