Arlington Saves $900K Annually by Improving Customer Experience and Increasing Self-Service

Increasing water rates were becoming a major issue for Arlington Water Utilities customers. To combat these rate hikes, Arlington needed to find a creative way to increase revenue and decrease costs without raising rates. The utility faced a number of billing challenges, including soaring credit card processing fees, rising print and mail costs, and increased calls and walk-ins.

After switching to Invoice Cloud, Arlington has seen several benefits, including:

• Substantial savings on credit card processing fees
• Increased self-service and paperless adoption
• Higher customer satisfaction
• Reduced staff workloads and manual labor
• Decreased print and mail costs

The Challenge

Rising operational costs and increasing rates were causing several challenges for both Arlington and its water utilities customers. The organization needed a digital payment platform that would decrease costs and increase operational efficiency. Other challenges included:

• High credit card processing fees paid by the city led to rate increases
• Lack of self-service functionality increased call volume, call abandonment, and in person visits
• High costs associated with printing and mailing paper bills
• Effectively moving from an absorbed fee to a convenience fee model

The Solution

Arlington needed an electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) platform that would help them overcome collections obstacles to more effectively achieve business goals to maintain stable rates. They chose Invoice Cloud as it provided everything they needed to:

• Enable a better user experience to drive more digital
  payments
• Increase self-service adoption to reduce calls and
  walk-ins
• Increase customer notifications to reduce late
  payments
• Stabilize rates by implementing a convenience fee
  model for credit card payments
• Simplify paperless enrollment to decrease print and
  mail costs

The Results

Since implementing Invoice Cloud, Arlington Water Utilities has realized significant benefits, including:

• Increased self-service and higher customer satisfaction due to an enhanced user experience and simplified payment process
• Significant cost savings with a convenience fee model that payers were agreeable to due to a superior platform that delivered on user needs
• Improved efficiencies that enable staff to shift focus to higher priority items
• Lower print and mail costs due to higher paperless adoption
• Greater Engagement through a seamless integration with their customer self-service portal