Every municipal utility carries the weight of uncollected accounts—customers who’ve moved, disputed charges that were never resolved, or balances that simply aged beyond your standard collection timeline. While these write-offs hit your 2025 books, they don’t have to be permanent losses. With the right strategy, a portion of these accounts can become recovered revenue in 2026.
1. Conduct a Strategic Account Review and Segmentation
- Segment your written-off accounts based on balance size, reason for write-off, time since last contact, and customer history
- Identify high-value recovery opportunities like customers with good payment histories before a life disruption, disputed meters that were never properly investigated, or final bills sent to outdated addresses
- Create targeted outreach campaigns for each segment that acknowledge their specific situation rather than sending generic collection letters
- Prioritize accounts most likely to respond based on your segmentation analysis
2. Modernize Your Recovery Approach with Payment Flexibility
- Offer settlement options for older balances—recovering 50-70% of a written-off account is better than zero
- Provide extended payment plans that fit today’s economic realities, not just standard 3-6 month options
- Make payment frictionless with online portals, text-to-pay options, and automatic payment plans
- Use email and text message outreach for customers who’ve moved, since mailed notices may never reach them
- Consider limited-time settlement offers to create urgency and motivation to resolve old balances
3. Partner with Specialized Recovery Services
- Work with utility revenue recovery firms that have skip-tracing capabilities and multi-channel communication platforms
- Choose partners who understand municipal utility debt and will maintain your community relationships
- Look for firms that specialize in locating customers who’ve moved and facilitating payment arrangements
- Consider services that focus on resolving disputed charges through investigation and mediation
- Evaluate the cost-benefit of outsourcing versus building these capabilities in-house
