Ebilling has been growing every year since it was first implemented, and with a wealth of benefits to both the consumer and the company, why wouldn’t it?
With benefits ranging from lower customer service costs, increased customer engagement and satisfaction, and even environmental impact, it’s clear why companies are making this shift a priority.
This is reinforced by an article from the Financial Brand, which claims: “Research shows a strong positive correlation between e-bill adoption and customer satisfaction, loyalty and profitability.”
So why has eBilling become so important as of late? Well, part of it has to do with a newer generation of customers who value companies who are customer-centric, proactive and are more engaged.
The concept of customer centricity is when a business makes changes to their operation with the customer’s experience in mind, as opposed to a purely financial decision (a business centric style). We’ve seen companies in every industry start off as pioneers in customer centricity and come out on top as forerunners in the last few years: Netflix, Amazon, Uber, to name a few.
With the implementation of an online billing solution, customers of public, private, and municipally-run utilities can view and pay their electric, water, gas, and other service bills at any time of day, from any location.
How does eBilling help my utility?
The shorter answer would be how doesn’t it help my utility, but below are some of the benefits of adopting an eBilling solution:
- Increased customer engagement.
- Better customer service.
- More time for your staff to focus on the customers / less strain on your customer service team.
- Reduced costs and paper usage.
- Customers are much happier with the real-time data and information.
- A stronger environmental focus.
Once registered, customers have the ability to view their bills on any device—from desktop computers to tablets and smartphones. It also allows them to pay their bills from anywhere, at any time.
Customers can track their utility usage, compare it with neighbours or their own previous consumption, make adjustments to their behaviour, and more.
Gone are the days when your customers need to travel to a payment kiosk or speak directly to one of your billing team, customers can pay their bills on their schedule, not yours – whenever is most convenient for them.
To aid the transition for customers, notifications and alerts can be sent to them so they are always aware and up to date about their utility usage.
Having online billing allows your utility to save on the money, time and effort it takes to print and mail out bills, all these resources you can now focus on other areas of your business.
At SilverBlaze we have created an award-winning utility customer portal which has a range of features that improve your utility, reduces your costs and develops your customer service offering, including but not limited to, eBilling, smart metering, mobile access and real-time usage data.
To find out more about our SilverBlaze Customer Portal speak to one of our experts and we’d be happy to help you move your utility forward and improve your offering.
{{cta(‘b61c4f18-9a36-4561-94e6-b520730e75c3′,’justifycenter’)}}
