Top 6 Advantages and Reasons for Outsourcing Utility Billing
Did you know that 63% of people still prefer getting printed utility bills over digital ones? It makes it easier for them to store, organize, and pay the bills on time! Also, most customers tend to ignore digital invoices and often miss payments.
Therefore, utility companies should send printed bills to grab their customers’ attention and help them complete the CTA.
But, what are utility bills? Here are a few examples:
- Gas bills
- Internet bills
- Electricity bills
- Telephone or landline bills
- Sewage and water bills
- Recycling bills, etc.
Utility bills are usually sent weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly, depending on the services you are offering. As a utility company, it may be hard for you to create and send thousands of bills regularly. Thus, consider outsourcing utility billing to a reliable print and mail company like PostGrid.
By outsourcing, you can serve your customers better and achieve higher efficiency levels. In this blog, we will discuss the features and benefits of outsourcing utility billing. Let’s dive in!
What Does Outsourcing Utility Billing Mean?
Outsourcing utility billing is just like outsourcing any other job or activity. For instance, businesses in the media industry might outsource video recording, editing, graphic designing, etc.
Similarly, utility companies can also hire a service provider to help them process their billing activities. It includes everything from creating invoices to sending them to the correct customers. Thus, businesses can transfer the extra workload to another provider and ensure efficiency throughout the process.
Advantages of Outsourcing Utility Billing
You can avail of more than one benefit by outsourcing your bill printing and mailing tasks. With a direct mail API like PostGrid, you may transform these plain, time-consuming activities into a well-curated, efficient billing system.
Variable Data Printing (VDP)
Variable data printing is an excellent printing technique that allows you to change texts, images, etc., from one item to another. The good news is that the printer does not need to stop or slow down the process to use this technique.
By outsourcing utility billing, you can use VDP effortlessly and affordably. It helps you personalize your bills with different amounts, names, addresses, particulars, etc.
PostGrid’s direct mail services offer personalization or VDP for every mail item. Thus, you don’t need to pay extra or put additional effort into printing different information on every bill.
Print and Mail in Large Volumes
Imagine having to print various types of utility bills in different formats. You may need to train your staff from time to time and still lag in some aspects. Also, the more invoices you need to send, the higher the workload!
Now, let’s imagine another scenario wherein you have a flexible solution to print and mail any number of bills anywhere. Outsourcing utility billing to an automated direct mail company like PostGrid helps you bring such expectations to life. Hence, you can create and send invoices on-demand or in bulk according to your needs.
We help our clients send thousands of invoices or bills every month using our automated solutions. They are also able to send other types of personalized mailpieces regularly as part of their everyday operations.
Collect and Use Accurate Data
Utility bills carry precise details about the usage of specific services by customers. You cannot afford to send an invoice with incorrect billing information. Furthermore, you need to explain why you charged a customer for a specific service.
It is not surprising that unclear and incorrect bills remain unpaid. They can only add to bills receivables and create a series of problems.
But, outsourcing utility billing can help you avoid such issues. For instance, you can integrate our direct mail API into your CRM and create bills in minutes. Our API integrations fetch the necessary details from your system automatically—ensuring that you only draft accurate invoices.
PostGrid also allows you to send triggered bills—simply specify a period when you need to print and mail them. And our automation platform will do the needful.
Ensure Billing Compliance
It is complicated for utility companies to communicate billing information with customers because of compliance issues. Utility billing is governed by several federal and state laws, making it harder to draft and distribute bills freely.
Luckily, outsourcing utility billing helps you get rid of such hindrances. Most vendors can help you follow all the rules and regulations effortlessly.
PostGrid itself is compliant with HIPAA, PIPEDA, SOC-2, and several such laws. Hence, you can rest assured that your data is safe and your bills are lawfully-compliant.
Real-Time Bill Tracking
From production to delivery, outsourcing utility billing helps you access real-time tracking information of your sent bills. You can always stay updated and ensure your invoices get to your customers promptly.
Remember, your customers must get the bills at a specified time every month or week. It lets them remember that they need to tend to your invoices, increasing your payment rates.
Companies outsourcing utility billing to efficient automation solutions like PostGrid can benefit from their tracking capabilities. Precise tracking also encourages you to follow up at the right time and reduce bill receivables.
Monitoring and Analytics
Monitoring your billing efforts is significant for several reasons, like:
- Spotting errors on time
- Analyzing discrepancies
- Solving any existing or potential issues
- Keeping reprinting expenses off the bay
Businesses can monitor their billing operations very closely by outsourcing utility billing. It helps them access helpful insights and reports in their system—which allows them to increase efficiency levels.
Why Should You Consider Outsourcing Utility Billing?
If you aren’t satisfied with the above advantages, here are some more reasons for outsourcing utility billing jobs:
Save Money
Perhaps, saving money is one of the prime objectives of every company in all sectors, from insurance to healthcare. Utility businesses can also cut costs by using automated services for billing purposes.
Drafting, printing, and sending bills in-house requires you to purchase a lot of equipment. It also requires enough space and human resources to handle everything smoothly. Naturally, these factors cost a lot of money and resources, affecting your budget significantly.
By outsourcing utility billing, you can avoid worrying about such monetary aspects. Instead, automate everything and pay all-in-rates that are much more affordable and reasonable.
Get Timely Payments
Many people choose not to pay their bills on time because of incorrect billing information. They might contact you and ask you to send a modified copy or forget about it.
Yes, it is so easy to jinx your incoming payment process. You need to ensure that your customers understand the bill’s contents and know what to do next. Outsourcing utility billing enables you to add customized CTAs, like:
- Scan the QR code below to make your payment
- Use this link to pay your bill
- Send a check to the address below, etc.
PostGrid’s bill printing and mailing services allow you to keep tabs on all the respondents. Thus, it is easier to know which customers made the payments and which ones have pending dues.
With our VDP capabilities, you can also insert personalized CTAs depending on the customers’ preferred payment methods.
For example, you can send a business reply envelope if you know that a particular customer likes to pay their bills offline. It will motivate them to stuff a check inside the envelope and mail it back in no time.
Zero Manual Effort
In-house bill distribution involves the following steps:
- Collecting customer-specific information
- Drafting timely bills
- Printing
- Stuffing bills into envelopes and sealing them
- Affixing stamps and labels
- Standing in queues at the Post Office to mail all the bills
These steps only form an outline of your billing process. Surely, there are many more tasks involved related to them. Outsourcing utility billing can help your company eradicate manual effort and replace it with an effective automated mechanism.
Thus, your staff can save tons of effort and time and put them to good use elsewhere. In short, outsourcing utility billing also enables you to manage your human resources effectively.
Send Transpromotional Bills
Transactional items, like checks, statements, invoices, etc., usually only consist of informational content. There is no additional factor that distinguishes your transactional mail from your competitors. But did you know that many companies use these items to retain customers and gain more business?
The key to getting repeat business is using trans-promotional printing! It refers to printing promotional messages on a transactional document. You can add your brand logo, a marketing tagline, etc.
It helps you increase brand visibility and recognition rates drastically! Thus, you may achieve two objectives simultaneously—sending bills and advertising your brand.
Outsourcing utility billing to transactional printing and mailing companies like PostGrid enables you to bag such excellent features at no added costs.
Verify Billing and Mailing Addresses
Sending bills to the correct recipients is another crucial part of your billing process. You cannot send out any mailpiece without double-checking the delivery address, as 9.8% of people move annually in America.
Also, sending bills to incorrect addresses can lead to data breaches and other related problems. Thus, it is advisable to validate your mailing lists in advance and ensure guaranteed deliveries.
Again, outsourcing utility billing with PostGrid can help you do so! Every time you send a bill through our API, the delivery address is automatically verified to ensure that your mail gets delivered successfully.
Send Payment Collection and Late Fee Letters
PostGrid also allows you to trigger the mailing of payment collection letters. They are an excellent payment recovery tool—reminding customers to honor their dues.
You can send a letter every week or once in two weeks to constantly keep in touch with your debtors. Just feed in the time duration in our automation software and let it handle the rest.
More Features That Make PostGrid’s Direct Mail API the Best Option for Utility Billing
Below, we have compiled some of the most helpful features of PostGrid that make it an apt choice for outsourcing utility billing:
99.99 Deliverability Rates
Our address verification solutions help you send bills to any location globally. It does not take more than a few minutes for PostGrid to validate tens of thousands of mailing addresses. Our API is scalable and can process millions of requests at the same time.
You can also standardize your addresses, add IMBs, and presort items—helping you get postal discounts. Thus, outsourcing utility billing to PostGrid allows you to do much more than sending bills.
2-Business Day SLA
PostGrid lets you create and print items in only two business days. Thus, you need not waste your precious time printing and organizing bills yourself, as you can now automate these tasks.
Unlimited Users
You can add as many users as you need to your PostGrid account. Once you start outsourcing utility billing, you can decide everything and authorize your staff to send bills to your customers.
Also, you can customize your user permissions to stay in control and get a consolidated view of your operations.
HTML Templates
Our template gallery has several invoice design templates in PDF and HTML formats to help you daft bills with ease. You can select any template you like and customize it according to your needs.
Hence, outsourcing utility billing also helps you save time and costs on design.
Dedicated Onboarding and Customer Support
Our team is available for you 24 x 7, so you can print and mail bills smoothly at any time. Also, our robust onboarding process helps you understand everything in-depth and set up our API within minutes.
Send Statements and Checks
Sometimes, sending statements helps you update customers regarding their paid and unpaid bills. Luckily, PostGrid also enables you to send timely statements to the correct recipients using the same process.
Once you integrate PostGrid’s API into your CRM, you can send any transactional item you want, including statements, checks, etc. Plus, you can also print and mail letters, postcards, etc. Our flexible services allow you to conduct smooth offline mailing—all with the click of a button.
Wrapping UP
Outsourcing utility billing can help solve several problems of compliance, time, and costs. It is the ideal solution that allows you to get paid on time without making any additional effort.
Many utility companies are already outsourcing utility billing to focus on other aspects of business and stay ahead of their competitors. To help them, PostGrid offers automated direct mailing services at industry-best pricing. Our flexible pricing plans help companies of all sizes automate utility billing without any issues.
With our vast range of features, you can easily print and mail bills at your own pace. Talk to our sales team now to learn more about outsourcing utility billing with PostGrid!
