Billing software – time to say goodbye to monolithic monsters?

The emergence of a single platform ecosystem for CRM and billing is a game-changer, allowing you to adapt quickly to changing customer needs.

As consumers, change is all around us. Be it emerging technologies enabling us to work or live smarter, more choice in what we choose to purchase and how we consume services, or simply changes in our own expectations when it comes to how we go about our daily lives.

For utility companies, change brings great opportunity and also considerable risk. Keeping ahead of ever-changing customer expectations is a constant challenge, creating a need to seek out new ideas and technologies to stay one step ahead.

In these times of unprecedented change one thing is clear, to continuously innovate and deliver more, utility companies must become more dynamic and agile; not through responding swiftly to change, but by driving a forward-­thinking change agenda that formulates true innovation and new ideas. This not only requires curiosity and the right people, but also the right technologies – solutions that enable and not hinder change.

A time for change

At the heart of every utility company’s contact centre is its billing and CRM platforms; the key to delivering accurate and reliable customer bills, and the lynchpin to providing helpful, seamless and effortless customer service that is right first time. Choosing these platforms is a fundamental decision for any company given the long-term investment and significant commitment in terms of cost, time and resource.

And, while at the outset a chosen solution may appear to meet current needs, it’s never been more important to invest in future-proofing; ensuring chosen software is fit for purpose today, tomorrow and in the future.

It’s fair to say that utility companies today remain considerably reliant on their software providers to modify systems as landscapes change. At a time when consumer markets are changing faster than ever, this simply isn’t a robust model for the years ahead; software must enable utility providers to be agile, staying one step ahead of changing customer expectations, evolving business models and regulation.

Emerging approaches

Be it the need to meet the customer’s yearning for a tailored, personalised service, the desire to join a modern multi-utility world, or simply to gain competitive advantage, system agility and flexibility are critical to respond to both these and regulatory drivers.

And while it’s widely recognised that legacy billing systems are no longer fit for purpose, change barriers have led some to retain and even upgrade these systems, in an attempt to wrap customer-first CRM solutions around them. Experience highlights that this complex integration model doesn’t work, requiring significant bespoke integration and resulting in overly complex and expensive projects in the drive for a true single customer view.

Positively, the emergence of a new type of solution, the “on platform” billing and CRM solution, is helping change this reality, opening a gateway to a world of “plug and play” technology and innovation that can complement and enhance customer billing without the need for lengthy software provider-led integration programmes.

Empowered for change

Of course, to be truly agile, utility companies must hold their destiny in their own hands. This means being empowered to configure software solutions to match their own needs at a pace that suits. This has led to the tables turning in favour of software that enables clients to customise their own enhancements, processes and triggers however and whenever they wish to do so, creating a real opportunity for utility companies to transform from a “led by change” ethos to being one step ahead of a fast-evolving consumer landscape.

Perhaps most importantly, software must empower utility companies to seize opportunities to listen and deliver what really matters to each and every customer, using process customisation and customer data to drive truly personalised and tailored service; taking customer segmentation to a whole new level.

Moving forward with momentum

The world is changing and as a sector we all – utility providers, their suppliers and partners – have a responsibility to look forward. The time for fresh thinking when it comes to the fundamental requirement of utility billing is now. Utility companies will increasingly add value through partners that can innovate alongside them, and for them – working in partnership to move forward with momentum. That said, while more agile, innovative solutions are increasingly preferred, deep market understanding cannot be underestimated; investing in pioneering solutions built without utility sector expertise at their heart holds significant risk.

Of course, when it comes to customer service and satisfaction, billing software is just one piece of a much larger picture, and on its own can never be the panacea. But the emergence of single platform ecosystems that include utility billing, CRM and other customer service software applications, means we are entering a new era, one where software is no longer a hindrance that holds the sector back from achieving its goals.

Monica Mackintosh is Managing Director at utilities-specialist outsourcer Echo Managed Services, creator of Aptumo – global SaaS utility billing software native to Salesforce.