Utilities
The energy and water supply markets have been the focus for significant scrutiny in recent years. Increases in the cost of supply have led to significant price increases, at a time when households face worsening recessionary pressures. The average household now faces an annual energy bill that is 36% higher than it was at the end of 2008. As a result, debt levels in the utilities sector have increased, with Ofgem reporting that the average level of debt grew by 20% between 2008 and 2009. Behind this increase are a growing number of households entering into debt repayment arrangements for the first time, +13% for electricity and +21% for gas.
When consumers choose to switch suppliers in their search for cheaper bills, or to avoid debts, there is often an element of financial risk to the supplier. The pressure to remain competitive and the need to improve returns on investment makes the job of managing risk, recruiting profitable customers and collecting debts increasingly reliant on more predictive and more insightful consumer data. By predicting ‘payment intent’, Fraudscreen solutions provide a unique and powerful perspective on potential customer value, whether applied as a stand-a-lone solution or integrated into existing segmentation models and scorecards.
Marketing improvement
Whilst Fraudscreen will reduce risk, it doesn’t necessarily mean a reduction in the number of new customers recruited, or in your sales revenues. Because our solutions create a bespoke segmentation of your audience, this enables you to tailor your messaging, offers and payment terms to achieve the greatest value. It also gives you the opportunity to expand your marketing volumes and sales numbers by using the best segments as a mechanism for cross-sell or up-sell initiatives or improving marginal media channels and datasets.
For the home rental sector and ‘dear occupier’ households, the lack of personal contact details makes it difficult to assess risk. Our geography level product, GeoPlus, provides a powerful solution by ranking all postcodes and postal sectors according to payment intent.
Collections improvement
The dunning process can often be expensive and ineffective. Being able to easily segment those entering the cycle according to payment intent will help you improve both cash flow and profits. cipher:collections gives you insight on your customers payment behaviour elsewhere. By combining this insight with your own transactional data will give you a better understanding of where your resource and expenditure will be most cost effective. The outcome will speed up payments received and reduce your overall cost per £ collected.
