Cities, municipalities, and utility companies often have challenges around billing operations. The problems faced include rising costs, issues with quality, and concerns about compliance. You also want to deliver utility bills that engage customers to remit payment and inform them of important information quickly. If all these things are impacting your organization, outsourced utility billing could be the answer.
Can You Outsource Utility Bills?
The reason you haven’t considered outsourced utility billing could be that you didn’t know it was possible. After all, the information in these statements is personal and confidential. Sending your data to a print and mail company may seem like a risky endeavor. It can be if your partner doesn’t specialize in transactional mail.
To be a specialist, a company must have a distinct focus on compliance and protection of data. They have certifications, conduct regular audits, and follow all laws regarding utility bill statements.
Now that you know it’s an option, here are reasons why it makes great business sense.
Outsourced Utility Billing Could Reduce Days Outstanding
Utility bills have a primary objective—to inform customers of their usage and payment requirements. With a more streamlined approach to utility bill printing, you could see your days outstanding reduced.
There are several reasons why this could happen.
- Transactional printers use optimized processes and advanced technology that could have statements arriving sooner than the current timeframe.
- The ability to use full color and different design elements to update your invoice may be easier for customers to read and understand.
- Technology and processes work together to improve delivery accuracy.
- Adding QR codes to statements in dynamic fields can allow for fast scanning and on-time payments.
You’ll be able to track the impact of outsourcing by many metrics. A decrease in days outstanding would be vital to keeping cash flow more stable.
A Higher Quality Statement Leads to Customer Engagement
If you haven’t redesigned your statements in some time, you likely aren’t getting much customer engagement. Beyond communicating usage and the amount due, your utility bill can do much more.
With a new modern design, you can create spaces for custom messages to customers. They are all variable with dynamic printing. Use that section to replace inserts. The content can change every billing cycle. For example, you can include messaging about conserving energy or water during peak months. Another option is to add communications about programs the utility offers.
Updating your statements and personalizing messaging are benefits to outsourcing utility bills.
Enhance Compliance and Reduce Risk
Outsourcing utility bill statements can improve compliance with regulations. The caveat is working with a partner that does more than the minimum. Compliance will be top of mind always, supported by technology, processes, protocols, and a chief compliance officer. When considering options, ask questions about accuracy rates, compliance certifications, and what their procedures include.
Cut Costs and Reduce Internal Strain
Last but not least is the money savings you can realize by outsourcing. The cost for you to do this continues to go up with material, equipment, and postage increasing. You can track this by looking at your expense to process a single invoice. Shrinking that number is possible by outsourcing.
When you choose this model, you no longer have to be responsible for the space, equipment, technology, or labor. Your partner takes on these responsibilities, and you have an operating expense only. With their ability to buy materials in bulk and use postage optimization tactics, the costs drop.
Like any organization, reducing costs is critical to healthy operations. This is one aspect that you can hand off to decrease internal strains on budgets and resources.
Outsourced Utility Billing with PCI Group
Outsourced utility billing can be simple, easy, and beneficial with PCI Group. We work with many utility companies to provide this service, decreasing their costs and boosting quality and accuracy. You can trust our experienced team to take over this task. Contact us today to see how we serve utility companies.
