While not the most visible or glamorous of functions within its overall value chain, the back-office is of the most essential components of a utility’s day-to-day operation and the functioning of its revenue cycle (getting bills out the door and payments in). Its primary role has been one of verification, diagnosis, and problem-solving - preventing downstream errors in customer bills, negative customer experiences, and unnecessary delays in cash flow.
“Most large utilities generate thousands of routine billing exceptions per day...an opportunity long overdue for digital innovation.”
The cost to manage these functions can be significant. A typical revenue cycle of a large utility can generate several thousand billing exceptions every day. Examples of these are where bills fall outside of expected tolerance levels, meter reading, collections, and payment exceptions. While the majority of these anomalies are resolved (or adjusted) behind the scenes with no negative impact on the customer, the manual work required to investigate and resolve the balance of these exceptions often requires a large back-office team, costing most utilities several dollars per customer per year in O&M expense.
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