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Before smart meters, SRP would simply hold the bill until the customer’s chosen due date,
Appendix BCUC IR1 22.1
but now that the utility has automated metering, it can forecast when there will be a spike in
billing.
According to Cindy Andrade, customer operations director at GRU, the Preferred Due Date
program is used as a vehicle for customer satisfaction and reductions in payment
extensions. “We do not find a significant impact to our operations by offering the custom due
date,” says Andrade. “Our expectation is that if a customer can choose their due date, then
perhaps they will request fewer (hopefully no) payment extensions. It is also an offering that
increases customer satisfaction. Our payment extensions, which are three times higher
during the recession than before, are having more of an impact on our efficiencies than this
program.”
Matt Bucher, customer care supervisor at Otter Tail Power, also weighed in on the
discussion: “In our case, the pick-a-due-date program is tied with automatic payments.” He
adds:
From a workload perspective, this has the potential for great operational savings if these
customers were paying in a more labor-intensive process, such as a walk-in payment location,
prior to signing up for the program. However, most customers who enroll were likely paying via
check by mail, in which case we’re moving from processing their payment with a remittance
center machine to processing by Automated Clearing House (ACH). There are still some savings
to be had, but not as substantial, if they were a walk-in customer prior.
In terms of cash flow, customers have the option of selecting any day between the day of billing
and the due date. That period is roughly 20 days for our customers. If customers sign up for
autopay, but do not select a date, we will pull the money from their account the day after the
account bills. Most customers will pick a date for the funds to be withdrawn and it’s usually the
due date for their account. Since customers typically paid on or near the due date when they
were paying by check, the program allows us to get funds faster. Although the majority of
customers select the due date, a surprising number of customers do not select a date and just
want their payment to be automatic, so we receive those funds immediately after billing.
If cash-flow concerns are a deterrent to this type of program offering, you might consider
the boost in customer satisfaction as an acceptable trade-off to the minute operational
impacts, if any exist at all.
Resources
Renee Castillo, Senior Director of Customer Services, SRP, 602-236-2175 (2011)
Cindy Andrade, Customer Operations Director, GRU, 352-393-1412 (2011)
Matt Bucher, Customer Care Supervisor, Otter Tail Power, 218-739-8443 (2011)
Roger Colton, Partner, Fisher Sheehan & Colton, 617-484-0597 (2009)
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