Outsourcing Utility Billing – 6 Reasons Why

The Perks of Outsourcing Utility Billing to a Utility Bill Printing and Mailing Services Vendor

Outsourcing utility billing has become a preferred way for cities, municipalities, and other utility companies to invoice their customers. That’s not surprising, considering the advantages that can directly impact an organization’s bottom line and level of customer satisfaction.

At Preferred Direct, we understand the challenges that your organization faces, and we have utility bill printing and mailing services—and electronic billing solutions—that will allow you to overcome them.

Let’s talk about some of the reasons why you should consider outsourcing your utility billing rather than handling it all in-house.

6 Benefits of Outsourcing Utility Billing

1. Reduce operational costs.

Producing utility billing statements requires time, staff, and equipment. All of that can place a significant financial burden on your city or municipality. By outsourcing utility billing, you have an opportunity to reduce human resource expenses and eliminate the costs of maintaining hardware and software required to process and send invoices.

2. Keep the cash flowing.

By outsourcing your invoicing to an experienced utility billing services provider, your billing statements will be sent accurately and on-time. Timely delivery helps keep cash flow consistent by decreasing days outstanding and reducing late payments. That can make a tremendous difference in your business’s bottom line.

3. Maintain a consistent brand across all your services.

An experienced vendor will have the technology and skill to create a standardized bill format for all of the services you offer. No matter which services your customers subscribe to, you will have uniform brand recognition across all fronts. Having that brand consistency with your existing customer base can also serve as a foundation for your branding efforts beyond your borders, too.

4. Improve customer satisfaction.

Outsourcing your utility billing to a vendor that specializes in custom invoices allows you to create bills that are easy to understand. It also allows you to include messages about upcoming changes and relevant news. This can not only increase customer satisfaction, but it can also reduce the workload on your customer service call centers. Clear and well-organized invoices lead to fewer customer questions and complaints.

5. Generate more revenue per customer.

You also gain opportunities to customize your utility billing statements with marketing messages. Cross-sell your products and services to different segments of your customer base and upsell customers to higher tiers of service or new offerings. When partnering with a print vendor that uses variable data to personalize messages to individual customers, you can deliver the right offers to the right people for maximal impact.

6. Eliminate barriers to growth.

Scale your organization’s offerings, customer base, and revenue without incurring a massive capital investment. With billing equipment in-house, eventually, you will face the need to upgrade machinery and software to accommodate growth. That’s not the case if you outsource your utility billing. A best-in-class utility bill printing and mailing service company will have solutions that fit your needs and grow as you grow.

Selecting a Utility Bill Printing and Mailing Services Vendor

Security and Versatility

A utility billing services provider should have all of the technology and measures in place to ensure that your customer data stays safe at all times. For optimal value, also consider if a vendor has the versatility to handle your organization’s diverse needs.

Preferred Direct has years of experience and a stellar reputation in managing variable data and sensitive information to generate invoices and other notices accurately and securely.

We guarantee prompt and confidential processing of your information while giving you flexible solutions to accommodate your unique requirements. We can replicate your existing invoice format, give you templates to choose from, or create a custom design to fulfill your vision. You’ll also have several options for submitting your data to us—via our secure FTP site in .xls, .txt, .csv, or .dat formats or send .pgp encrypted files.

We handle printing, folding, inserting, presorting (for postal discounts), and delivering your utility invoices to the U.S. Post Office.

As you know, the postage costs to send invoices can add up. Fortunately, because of the large volume of mail we handle every day, we get a discount. And we extend that discount to our customers when we manage their mailings. We handle all of the logistics involved in mailing your customer statements and ensure timely delivery. Better still, we cut your postage expenses in the process.

Thanks to our streamlined process, we do it all much more quickly than you can in-house. That means your customers get their bills faster, you get paid faster, and you save money.

Electronic Billing Capabilities

While a majority of consumers prefer to receive print invoices, many also expect the ability to pay their bills online. Electronic billing solutions give customers a convenient and environmentally friendly alternative to printed statements.

Preferred Direct’s e-billing services allow your customers to view and pay their invoices securely online. Moreover, our e-billing services can decrease your billing and payment processing costs significantly. They also help reduce the number of late payments.

Outsourcing Utility Billing: A Wise Choice for More Than Just Utility Bills

For even more cost-effectiveness and convenience, consider outsourcing not only your direct billing but also other customer communications, too.

• Late payment notifications
• Disconnect notices
• Rate change notifications
• Tariff notifications
• Letters
• Newsletters
• Fliers
• Direct mail marketing advertisements

At Preferred Direct, we offer a full range of print and digital solutions for public and private utility companies. 

• Cities
• Boroughs
• Townships
• Telephone companies
• Water companies
• Natural Gas companies
• Electricity companies

When you work with us, you get a dedicated project manager who will see to it that every project meets your requirements and expectations.

Contact us to discuss how we can help you reduce your invoice processing and postage costs, improve your cash flow, and enhance your customer relationships.