Energy : Five payment considerations for energy suppliers

Across Europe, energy suppliers are going through turbulent times. Rising prices, increased competition, high churn rates and payment volumes are all making it harder to attract and retain customers. As a result, maintaining stable cash flow through regular payments has become more difficult than ever.

In light of these sector-wide challenges, suppliers should ask themselves whether their current processes are helping them adapt – or making matters worse. Manual payment processing often creates inefficiencies and adds to your admin burden, while also damaging customer relationships.

Here are five key payment considerations for energy suppliers looking to retain customers and protect their cash flow.

1. Are you still handling payments manually?

Manual payment processes can require more than 20 full-time employees. When payment collection demands significant in-house resources (not to mention the direct impact on your cash flow), your team is pulled away from more strategic and value-adding tasks.

Automated payments take the pressure off. They integrate with your existing tools and come with features that digitise the entire payment workflow, from invoicing to reconciliation. Your teams are freed from time-consuming admin, saving you money in the process.

2. Are you losing money to unpaid bills and fraud?

Payment inefficiencies are a common issue across the energy sector. Late payments, failures and fraud can carry a high cost, especially when suppliers are already under pressure to retain customers and preserve cash flow. Between 11% and 15% of failed payments turn into bad debt or customer churn.

Payment intelligence provides a solution. With tools that automate recovery and fraud prevention, you stay in control of your revenue and keep your cash flow safe from unexpected events.

3. Do you know the true cost of your payments?

Transaction fees are just the tip of the iceberg. With rising energy bills increasing the risk of non-payment, it’s just as important to consider the time and resources spent managing, processing and recovering payments. In fact, only 38% of failed payments are recovered manually – the rest is lost for good.

Automated solutions recover failed payments effortlessly and help prevent fraud before it happens. In doing so, they reduce the total cost of payment collection for your business.

4. Are you offering the best possible experience to your customers?

Most energy providers offer multiple ways for customers to pay their bills. But did you know that 46% of consumers prefer a bank-based method, such as Direct Debit, when paying for recurring products and services like energy? With prices rising and more customers choosing instalment payments, encouraging this payment method is more relevant than ever.

Automatic bank payments improve the customer experience, even when payments fail. Failed payments are automatically retried and recovered, eliminating the need for follow-up calls or emails.

5. Are your processes set up for growth?

Expanding into new markets, locally or internationally, means dealing with even higher payment volumes. Can your current systems handle the increased load efficiently, without requiring more staff?

Every time you enter a new market, your time and financial investment increases. So it’s worth asking whether managing payments in-house is really the best option, when outsourcing could bring greater efficiency, profitability and peace of mind for both you and your customers.

Transform your business with simpler, cheaper payments that deliver more.

Curious how better payments can help you thrive in today’s energy market? 

Speak to a payment expert today