Severn Trent has recovered £3m in unpaid bills in the last 12
months through the use of voice messaging technology.
The water utility firm used software from
Qire, known as interactive
voice messaging, to automatically call people that owe it
money.
Severn Trent uses the system to recover funds from accounts that
have been closed but not yet paid up.
The system dials the bill payer and after confirming their
identity transfers them to an agent without charging them.
The system has sent 176,000 messages to customers in arrears
since it was
deployed in September and has recovered £3m. The use of the
system has also increased the value of repayments customers are
making.
"As well as recovering millions in overdue bill payments, the
payments we are now receiving are on average more than 30% higher
than those previously achieved through traditional contact methods
such as through dialler-based calling or postal campaigns," said
Russell Mackuin, debt strategy and controls manager at Severn
Trent.
One of the main benefits of the software is that it provides a
cost-free call for the customer, which was welcomed by regulators
and customer support groups.