Billing and payments: How well do you know your customers?

28 July 2022

Billing and payments: How well do you know your customers?

This research report explores the barriers that are hampering UK utilities’ ability to engage with customers on their own terms across the billing and payment cycle through increased flexibility, tailored services and real-time communications channels.

The economic onslaught impacting households and businesses across the country has left swathes of customers struggling to pay their utility bills – many of whom were already feeling the crunch on finances following the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

To find out more about how utilities are responding to these wide-ranging challenges, Utility Week partnered with global payments and technology company Mastercard to conduct a unique piece of research with industry leaders.

Our research sought to reveal the enduring challenges for energy and water utilities as they explore how an enhanced approach to billing can help to address some of the pressures currently facing domestic and business customers. The report features views of leaders at Anglian Water, Northumbrian Water and EDF, among others, on the following topics:

  • Understanding complex billing and payment issues
  • The impact of evolving customer requirements
  • Tackling data challenges and the need for a more joined-up approach

Within these chapters, the report explores the views of sector leaders on the relationship between customers and technology, and the role digital platforms can play now and in the future to support better customer engagement through the billing and payment journey.

Further insight into the research, including the appetite for innovation in payments and the opportunities to better support customers, particularly those with vulnerabilities, is explored in the second instalment of this report, titled Billing and payments: Are you doing enough to support your customers?

To see the full report, download it for free simply by filling in the form to the side of the page.