Utilities Credit & Collections Symposium: Our Top Three Takeaways
Shareholders Sara Costanzo and Amanda Yurechko recently attended the Conferences By Monticello 2024 Annual Utilities Credit & Collections Symposium in Miami-Coral Gables, FL.
Apart from the utility industry experts, this symposium presented a unique opportunity for industry vendors and solution providers to connect with and assist the utility community. Throughout the symposium, attendees had the opportunity to join thought-provoking panel discussions, connect with leaders in the industry, and overall learn more about the credit and collection industry.
Here are Sara and Amanda’s top three takeaways!
- Industry-wide, three primary factors have caused a flood of lingering accounts receivable: The COVID-19 pandemic, moratoriums prohibiting disconnection, and funding. Many utility providers have arrearage pools higher than ever documented, as a result, and are seeking solutions.
- Aside from accounting for the unpaid claims, the main goals to address nonpayment and avoid disconnect were identified as segmentation of arrears by risk scoring, educating customers about low-income programs, utilizing credit card payments via text, and providing strategic payment kiosks in the community.
- Finally, discussions turned to strategies being implemented, some of which are replacing automatic dialers and rolling out digital-only campaigns (emailing and texting customers who’ve opted in).
- With new technology always comes new obstacles, including obtaining a source code, customers using caller ID to avoid calls, discerning between mobile and landline numbers, electronic communications being caught in spam filters, and a trend to simply not answer unknown calls/click on unknown links.
Our team is constantly monitoring these changes to the industry. If you would like to learn more about our consumer collections solutions, contact Sara and/or Amanda today!
These blogs are not a solicitation for business and are not intended to constitute legal advice on specific matters, create an attorney-client relationship, or be legally binding in any way.
