Over the course of the past few months, I’ve been conducting the 2023 Utility Fee Survey. This is the fifth Utility Fee Survey dating to 2015, with subsequent fee surveys in 2017, 2019, and 2021. The survey was designed to […]
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Utility Billing
Over the course of the past few months, I’ve been conducting the 2023 Utility Fee Survey. This is the fifth Utility Fee Survey dating to 2015, with subsequent fee surveys in 2017, 2019, and 2021. The survey was designed to […]
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Have you ever wondered how your utility’s rates compare to other utilities? If so, are you familiar with the rates dashboards from the UNC Environmental Finance Center? Environmental Finance Centers The EFC at UNC is one of 11 regional members […]
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Wait for it… the US Postal Service is warning customers to not send checks through the mail! Not cash, which has always been a risk, but checks! I know it feels like I’m unfairly beating up on the Postal Service […]
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If you haven’t read about it yet, get ready, because… Postage rates are going up again! Yes, you read that correctly. Postage rates are scheduled to increase again next month. On July 9, both First Class and Postcard rates are […]
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When I present my most popular presentation at utility conferences, there are two takeaways I want all participants to leave with. These are (a) charge an application fee, and (b) charge the cut-off fee to all accounts when the cut-off […]
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As I’m starting to analyze the preliminary results of the 2023 Utility Fee Survey, I’m surprised many utilities still don’t charge an application fee. As you can see from the graph above, the percentage of utilities charging an application fee […]
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Recently, on one of the listservs I follow, a question was asked about billing for multiple units served by a master meter. There are two common ways of billing for multiple units, the Average Bill and Multiple Minimums methods. Let’s […]
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Does your utility charge a meter reread fee? If you’re like the vast majority of utilities who responded to the 2021 Utility Fee Survey, you don’t. And you should! It’s a fact – only 25 of the 142 utilities (a […]
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A recent post on one of the listservs I subscribe to asked about how other utilities deal with customers who pay online using an echeck to defer disconnection on cut-off day. In this case, a customer would enter the echeck […]
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