Billing enquiries.
The largest single category of utility call volume, and the one where a wrong answer costs the most trust.
“I want to know what I owe and when it is due.”
Why it is harder than it looks
The balance is easy. What sits behind it is not: a budget billing plan, a proration after a move-in, an estimated read later trued up, a rate change part way through the period, or an arrears arrangement. A caller asking what they owe may actually be asking why it is that much.
What happens today
A touch-tone system reads the balance from the bill file and offers to repeat it. If the caller wants to know why, the menu has no branch for that and they are queued for a person.
What the agent does instead
The agent reads the live account rather than a nightly extract, states the balance and due date, and can explain the composition when asked, because it has the same record a CSR would be looking at.
Systems it reads
- Customer information system
- Billing
- Payment provider
What it can execute
- State balance and due date
- Explain what makes up the charge
- Read recent payment history
- Take a payment
- Send a copy of the bill
Where it stops
A disputed charge, a billing error that needs a correction, or anything requiring a credit or adjustment goes to staff with the account and the question already attached.
In production
At the City of Kingsport, across a month covering a water outage, 20,379 calls were handled with 60.3% resolved end to end and an average call of 1:53.1
Common questions
Can an AI agent answer utility billing questions?
Yes, and the useful ones answer more than the balance. Reading the live account from the customer information system lets the agent state what is owed and when, and explain what makes it up: a budget billing plan, a proration, an estimated read that was trued up, or a lapsed arrangement.
Does the AI agent read the live balance or a copy?
The live record. Reading from a nightly extract means telling a caller something a CSR looking at the same account would contradict, which costs more trust than the call saved.
How much of a utility's call volume is billing?
Usually the largest single share. At the City of Kingsport, billing and payments together were about 58% of all calls in the first month in production. That is why balance, due date, usage and payments are normally in the first set of requests an agent takes on.
Does an AI agent verify the caller before giving out a balance?
Yes. Nothing about an account is said aloud until the caller has been identified. At the City of Kingsport, 67% of callers were verified automatically from the number they called on; callers who do not match are taken through a challenge on account details instead.
Can an AI agent enrol a customer in autopay or paperless billing?
Yes. At the City of Kingsport, Auto Pay enrolment and paperless bill delivery are among the requests the agent handles, alongside bill enquiries, payments and payment history. Enrolment calls are short, and they are exactly the ones that get deprioritised when the queue is long.
What happens when a caller disputes a charge on their bill?
It goes to staff. A disputed charge, a billing error that needs correcting, or anything requiring a credit or adjustment is transferred with the account and the question already attached. At the City of Kingsport the CSR receives a written summary and the full transcript, posted to the customer's account, so the caller does not repeat themselves.
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