There’s an old story about a young girl helping her mother prepare the holiday ham. Mom explains that they must cut a little off both ends of the ham before putting it in a pan to go in the oven. […]
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Utility Billing
During a business review I recently completed, one of the areas identified was the need for additional training to take full advantage of the features of their meter reading software. This wasn’t an office with staff turnover, rather just the […]
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A few issues back I explored the pros and cons of charging convenience fees. In that blog post, I mentioned the all-too-common argument in support of charging convenience fees – “It’s not fair for all of our customers to have […]
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I recently joined another listserv and one of the recent posts inquired about security deposits, including how much other utilities charged. Periodically, I see utilities asking how much other utilities charge as a security deposit. While this may provide an […]
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As we approach the New Year, I want to wish you a very Happy New Year! This past year has certainly been an interesting one! After finding myself unexpectedly without a job in April, I was provided the opportunity to […]
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This is the second of two consecutive Utility Information Pipeline issues reporting the results of the 2022 Utility Staffing Survey. 88 utilities, representing 25 states, ranging in size from 35 to 192,000 active accounts participated in the survey. This is […]
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For the past several months, I’ve been conducting the 2022 Utility Staffing Survey. This survey has become a biennial survey, alternating years with the Utility Fee Survey. The initial Utility Staffing Survey was in 2016, followed by 2018 and 2020. […]
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In my recent interactions, I’ve been somewhat surprised at how many utilities are still printing their own bills in-house and haven’t moved to outsourcing. Without knowing exactly why they haven’t made the switch, I’ve come up with three possible reasons… […]
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During the last couple of conferences I’ve spoken at, I’ve been surprised by how many utilities are still taking phone credit card payments in the office. There are at least three downsides to taking phone credit card payments in person […]
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I’ve seen two related scenarios lately which merit discussing in more detail. The first case was a business review I recently completed for a utility that charges their cut-off fee as two separate charges – a cut-off fee, then a […]
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