3 Ways to Potentially Avoid Raising Rates on Customers

If you’ve noticed your water and sewer bill creeping higher lately, you’re not alone! A recent report found that U.S. water and sewer bills have jumped 24% in just five years. And this raises some serious affordability concerns for customers already dealing with stubbornly high inflation. With infrastructure upgrades and inflation playing key roles, utilities face rising operational costs, which are often passed down to customers.

But here’s the good news: utilities have options to keep costs in check and help soften the impact on customers. By adopting smarter billing and metering strategies, your utility can lower expenses, reduce inefficiencies, and (hopefully) keep rates from climbing even higher.

Here are three big ways United Systems can help you fight rising costs.

1. Autopayments and Paperless Billing

Mailing bills and processing manual payments take time and resources, and let’s be real: not a single person enjoys dealing with late payments and service disruptions. Autopayments and paperless billing are easy ways to streamline billing, improve cash flow, and cut down on some of the most mundane administrative tasks.

When your customers set up paperless and automatic billing, your staff spend less time upfront with postcards, envelopes, and folding and fewer headaches on the back end from chasing payments. That means more time focused on what really matters—providing reliable service.

2. Printing & Mailing Service

Printing and mailing postcards or bills in-house is a hidden money pit. Between paper costs, ink, equipment maintenance, postage, and your staff’s time, expenses add up fast.

Outsourcing bill printing and mailing lets you take advantage of economies of scale, reduce waste, and ensure customers receive accurate and timely bills—all while lowering operational costs. That’s a win for everyone!

3. Smart Metering & Reporting

Now, let’s talk about something that might not get enough attention at your utility: non-revenue water (NRW). NRW is the water your utility produces but doesn’t actually bill for, whether due to leaks, theft, or meter inaccuracies. Essentially, it’s “non-revenue” that someone (usually your customers) ends up covering.

Smart metering technology helps curb these losses by providing real-time data on water usage, detecting leaks faster, and ensuring accurate billing. Pair that with advanced reporting tools and alarms and you can quickly diagnose inefficiencies, address issues proactively, and recover lost revenue. Less wasted water means lower operational costs, which helps keep customer bills more manageable.

So, Here’s the Thing…

Thankfully, you have ways to push back against the flow (punning!) of operational inefficiencies driving up costs.

Autopayments, paperless billing, print and mail services, and smart metering are proven strategies United Systems customers use today to improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary expenses. We help utilities implement these solutions to operate more effectively—and maybe even pass some of the savings on to their customers.

If you’re a utility provider looking to fight back against rising costs, let’s chat. Whether it’s a smart metering setup from Itron, utility management software and services, or (better yet) both, we’d love to help you find a solution that makes sense for your utility and community.