Technological advances have changed the way we approach business and, most importantly, the customer experience. This includes everything from how utility providers monitor a customers’ meter to how they manage their finances. Some companies, however, still rely on billing methods that are outdated.
Utility providers that want to stand out in the digitally-driven world, and provide their customers with the best possible experience, must implement paperless billing.
Providers that embrace paperless billing, also known as ebilling, through a self-service web portal can reap the rewards from increased profit margins, the opportunity to save money and happier customers.
Paperless billing saves time, reduces printing and mailing costs, delivers faster payments, and helps reduce the costs associated with the notification and collection of overdue payments. As it’s an automated and self-service feature, ebilling also helps to reduce the strain on customer service departments, giving them more time to focus on complex customer service queries.
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Not only does it benefit the provider, but it also greatly improves the customer experience. Customers can pay for their bills on their preferred device with a simple click of a button, giving customers a convenient way to receive their bills and make payments on time.
Here are three benefits of implementing paperless billing:
1 – Speeding up your revenue cycle
The conventional methods of sending bills by mail is slow. It can take a long time for bills to arrive with your customer, it can take them even longer for them to send their payment back to your billing department, and let’s not even mention how long it can take to chase up late and overdue payments.
Ebilling dramatically speeds up this process. Customers can access their billing through the self-service web portal immediately, as soon as you have posted it. The fact that the billing goes straight to their smart device means they can make payments instantly, and in any location, as long as they have an internet connection. This fast turnaround on billing will result in improved revenue cycles.
2 – Reduce your costs
Encouraging your customers to sign up for paperless billing will significantly reduce the costs of mailing out physical bills, as well as saving staff time on manually preparing them to be sent out. Online billing will also save money in terms of lost bills and tracking down customers.
No longer will your utility have to hunt down customers that have moved and forgot to tell you. Their bill will be sent straight to their phone at the usual time, no matter where they are. Not only is this less hassle for you, but it also provides extra satisfaction and less work for the customer.
3 – Ebilling gives your customer service team more time to focus on what matters
Rather than performing trivial tasks and answering easy-to-solve queries, your customer service team will now have time to focus on what matters – your customers. Paperless billing and self-service web portals allow customers to take control of how, when and where they pay their bills and access their information.
Why does this impact the customer service team? Because this ease of access will greatly reduce the number of calls received by your contact centre, which, in turn, reduces the strain on your employees and enables them to complete higher value tasks. Not only will employee satisfaction improve, but so will their ability to serve your customers who have more complex queries.
SilverBlaze Customer Portal has every feature needed to fulfill your utility’s paperless billing needs. Implement ebilling today and watch your customer experience and cost savings reach new heights.
Want to find out how we can help? Contact us today.
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