Utility Debt Collection: Balancing Recovery and Customer Experience

Utilities often serve customers for years or even decades. When an account becomes delinquent, the utility faces a unique challenge: recovering unpaid balances while protecting the trust and reputation it has built within the community.

That is one reason IC System pays close attention to the consumer experience during collections.

Keeping an Eye on the Customer Experience

Collection performance is usually measured by dollars recovered, liquidation rates, contacts, and other familiar metrics. Those numbers are important, but they do not always show what the interaction felt like for the consumer.

IC System uses customer satisfaction feedback, or CSAT, to get another view of those interactions.

The feedback helps us understand how consumers are responding to conversations with our representatives and gives us another source of information when we review the collection experience.

For public utilities, municipal utilities, and cooperatives, that can be especially useful. These organizations often have long-standing ties to the communities they serve, and a collection interaction can still reflect on the utility even after the customer has moved or closed the account.

CSAT is one piece of a broader quality program that also includes call quality monitoring, complaint management, internal auditing, and compliance oversight.

Handling Accounts Throughout the Collection Process

Utility accounts do not always follow a straight path to resolution.

A customer may receive reminders from the utility, move into a primary collection program, and still leave the account unresolved. Depending on the account and the utility’s program, there may be opportunities for secondary collections, late-stage efforts, updated consumer information, or other strategies.

Having a clear process for those accounts helps keep potentially recoverable balances from sitting untouched for long periods of time.

IC System works with utility clients across final-bill, primary, secondary, late-stage, and other collection programs, which gives us experience with different parts of that lifecycle.

Finding Customers After They Move

Final bills can become harder to collect when a customer leaves the service area.

Addresses change. Phone numbers change. A utility that serves a local community may eventually have former customers spread across the country.

Skip tracing, updated consumer data, analytical tools, and other account-location resources can help reconnect an account with more current information.

National collection capabilities also matter in these situations. IC System is licensed, bonded, and insured to perform collection activity in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Guam, which helps support accounts when consumers relocate outside the utility’s original service area.

Protecting Customer Information

Utilities already spend a great deal of time thinking about security, and that concern carries over to collection partners.

A collection agency may receive a large amount of customer and account information, so utilities need to understand how that data is protected once it leaves their systems.

IC System’s utility collection programs are supported by data security controls, auditing, monitoring, and other safeguards designed to protect consumer information throughout the collection process.

That security work sits alongside the quality controls used to review calls, manage complaints, and monitor account handling.

Experience With Utility Collections

IC System currently provides accounts receivable management services to more than 130 public, municipal, and cooperative utilities.

More than 90% of our utility clients have worked with us for over five years, and more than 35% use IC System for multiple projects.

Those relationships cover a wide range of collection programs and give our teams experience with the day-to-day challenges utilities face, including final bills, customer mobility, large account volumes, data security, performance reporting, and consumer communication.

CSAT adds another layer to that work by giving us feedback directly from the people interacting with our representatives.

For utilities looking at collection partners, that kind of visibility can be valuable. It gives the organization a better sense of how accounts are being handled while the agency works toward recovery.

Contact IC System to learn more about our utility collection services.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. State, local, federal, and industry-specific requirements may affect collection practices. Organizations should consult qualified legal counsel when evaluating their collection policies and procedures.