Problem

After more than 130 years of providing water and wastewater services to the region, Hunter Water continues to provide excellent service while putting customers and the community at the heart of everything they do.

Billing is a significant part of customer experience, and Hunter Water understood their bills were not fulfilling customer expectations. They lacked self-serve options, which led to thousands of low-value customer billing enquiries per year.

Their previous bill experience contributed to multiple late-payment reminders, low financial assistance awareness, and unhelpful water usage information that was inconsistent with their new 'Love Water' brand. It was also difficult to update and track educational messages.

This demanded resources, budget, effort, and increased cost to serve.

Hunter Water sought a trusted partner to help inspire customers to 'Love Water' and create a modern bill experience aligned to their business goals.

Computershare helped create a simple, personalised bill experience to unlock time for more of what matters – at work, and in life.

Results snapshot

24%increase in eBill up-take in the first year
22%saving on print/post in the first year
49%reduction in low-value billing enquiries

Solution

To empower customers with the right tools, Hunter Water adopted Computershare's 'My Account' platform and IVR payment functionality to provide self-serve options 24/7.

This was completed with a redesign of their billing communications. Hunter Water's new bill experience:

  • Provide clear call to actions to improve on-time payment by highlighting account balances and payment information.
  • Shows relevant water usage information to encourage usage savings and to 'Love Water.'
  • Ensures the customer job-to-be-done and desired actions could be achieved with ease. This was validated through customer usability testing.
  • Enables education and marketing messages to be varied and actions tracked easily.
  • Educates customers to self-serve through integrated real-time usage and payment functionality.
  • Enables data-based insights.

Results

Computershare helped Hunter Water ensure their bill experience is easy to understand, faster to pay and simpler to manage, while also meeting regulation and ESG goals.

Improved payment behaviours:
  • A clear call to action, with digital payment channels prioritised.
  • eCalendar payment reminders.
Lower cost to serve, empower self-serve:
  • Switch to electronic communications.
  • Update personal details online.
  • Download/view bill history.
  • Payment and assistance options.
Improved Customer Experience (CX):
  • Optimal and consistent customer experience in channel of choice.
  • Personalised bills to suit residential, commercial and sundry segments.
  • Variable marketing messages.
  • Track customer actions from eBill.
Drive 'Love Water' brand behaviours:
  • Useful usage information and usage targets.
  • Variable educational messages.
 

 

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