Improving billing and forecasting efficiency

The challenge

Billing processes are complex, often error-prone and labour intensive with an important impact on customer engagement and capital efficiency.

The solution

Advances in predictive analytics, AI and data science mean you can streamline your billing functions, automate error-prone processes, and accurately forecast revenues at the same time as transforming your relationship with customers and/or brokers. These are enablers on your journey from commodity seller to customer centric service leader.

At Itineris we solve many interesting use cases for utilities with AI-enabled technology . This section focuses specifically on how AI can:

  • Influence your billing performance and revenue forecasting

  • Minimize your costs and maximize your added value for customers

AI, data and analytics

The 5 factors that influence your billing performance

  • Educating your customer/broker
    Your ability to educate your customers and brokers will result in greater customer satisfaction. By providing real-time insights and advising on their consumption profile, potential energy savings and how they can reduce their CO2 emissions you can empower them to control their own usage long before the bill arrives.

  • An accurate and real-time bill
    Your ability to model every bill component accurately by collecting and analyzing real-time data from smart meters, generation sites and other sources across your network.

  • Selecting the right communication channel for billing and collection letters
    Your ability to build a strong customer profile based on historical data, customer behavior, and demographic data will result in you being able to employ the most beneficial communication channel for sending invoices and notifications. Using the correct communication channels will radically increase your chances of getting the bill paid on time to improve your cash flow position.

  • Forecasting revenue and cash flow
    Gaining detailed insights into not only revenue forecasting but also on expected payment behavior will allow you to optimize your cash flow position. Providing brokers with specific commission forecasts will result in a positive long-term relationship.

  • Planning of your customer service & support resources
    By pro-actively forecasting the amount of billing exceptions and customer enquiries following bill creation, you can confidently allocate resources where they’re needed. So you’re always prepared for the right number of queries on the right channels.

Bring your billing performance to the next level with AI

On the one hand, with the proliferation of smart meters, electricity usage is increasingly recorded in real-time. On the other hand, the energy market has become increasingly complex with multiple generation sources. Industrial and Commercial (I&C) customers are becoming Prosumers (think about solar & wind energy, and batteries), and they might sell some of their energy back to the grid (reverse billing). Their bill needs to reflect that. I&C customers also require billing across multiple sites and potentially multiple currencies. . The result is more data points than ever thus bringing new opportunities to improve your billing performance.

A focus area of Itineris is to use AI-powered technology for enhancing billing performance by accurately forecasting the outcome of a bill before it has even been created using historical data points and customer behaviour.

 

More specifically identify:

Invoice outcome

  • How many customers will pay their invoice on time?
  • How much outstanding balance is to be expected?
  • How many customers will dispute the invoice?
  • How many customers will contact your customer service team with additional questions?

Revenue outcome

  • Are your customers consuming as you were expecting / how you estimated?
  • What is the performance of the portfolio management: procurement versus sales?
  • What is your cost structure per customer to secure the expected margin?
  • What will be your cost-to-serve of every individual customer and/or customer group?

During every billing cycle more and more data points will be available that will feed the AI-powered technology to ensure even more accurate results in the future.

All data insights captured during the customer life cycle will be used to create a strong customer profile. AI-powered technology will use these customer profiles to ensure maximum added value for your end customer and minimize your cost-to-serve by anticipating your customer’s needs.

Final thought

Utilities have been using AI and machine learning with the clear objective to do things “smarter, better and faster”. Done well, this is a foundational business tool to improve your billing performance, have a positive impact on your customers’ satisfaction and improve your bottom-line financial results.

Want to learn more about our solutions?
Let’s talk!

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Itineris & UMAX

Itineris develops and implements UMAX, a set of cloud-based solutions for utilities.

UMAX supports accurate conversion of meter readings to bills, with extensive customer and field service support capabilities.

The UMAX solutions are built on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform.

ISOIEC 27001 - CERTIFIED
Microsoft Certified

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Contact us

Itineris Belgium (HQ)
Westrem Building
Kortrijksesteenweg 1144 A
9051 Sint-Denijs-Westrem (Ghent)
Belgium
T +32 9 386 01 02

Itineris Atlanta (USA)
600 Peachtree St. NE
Suite 3730
Atlanta, GA 30308
USA
T +1 678 894 2177

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