LaGrange pushes e-billing for utilities - eBilling News | EBPP

LaGrange pushes e-billing for utilities

on Tuesday 07 Feb 2012

The city of LaGrange is encouraging its utility customers to receive their monthly bill online rather than through the mail.

"If it saves us money, it saves you money," said Utilities Director Patrick Bowie. Some utility customers with e-mail may have seen the following message in their inboxes on Wednesday:

Dear Customer:

We currently mail you a paper utility bill each month. You can help us reduce our operating costs by logging into our website at www.lagrange.net, clicking the link on the left side of the main page and changing your billing option to receive only an eBill. You will also be helping the environment by reducing paper waste and energy used to process and deliver the mail.

Bowie said the city sends out the message occasionally to those customers for whom e-mail addresses are on file, since those customers are known to have access to a computer.

Customers have several options for how to receive and pay their bills.

• Sign up for e-mail notifications and see and pay bills online.

• Sign up for e-mail notifications but also receive a paper bill.

• Sign up for auto draft, which will deduct the bill each month from a checking account or credit card.

Customers who don't want to use autodraft can still sign up for e-bill to see and pay their bills online.

Bowie said the city has 22,000 utility customers that receive bills. About 480 customers now use e-bill and 2,812 get an e-bill and a paper bill.

To send out paper bills costs the city about $20 per customer per year between paper, postage and labor costs.

"That adds up," he said. "Overhead in customer service is extremely costly."

The city still is figuring out a way for customers who get bills online to see the special information that's often inserted into monthly mailings. The city sends out its own items like the annual water quality report and trash and yard waste pick up schedules, which also are available online.

"The things we do for third parties like the chamber of commerce or the school system, we're not there yet," We've been looking at how to do that."

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