Igniting Change Through Modern Payments

The Opportunity

Since 1939, Nashville Electric Service (NES) has delivered power to residents of Middle Tennessee. Today, NES stands as the 11th largest utility in the nation and distributes power to more than 450,000 customers within the region.

While its ability to serve the energy needs of customers is second to none, NES faced the challenge of overcoming the billing and payment limitations of its legacy provider. Driven by a need to modernize its payment options, enhance the customer experience and streamline operations for staff, NES selected Paymentus as its billing and payment modernization partner.

The Solution

NES had several key objectives driving its transformation:

• Introduce innovation that was inhibited by its legacy provider

• Expand bill payment options to fit the growing needs of its customers

• Provide simple, intuitive self-service digital billing and payment options such as automated payments (AutoPay)

• Streamline in-person payments to add convenience for customers and ease congestion for staff

Paymentus delivered a multi-faceted, comprehensive billing and payment solution that helped NES meet each of their objectives without the need for added IT vendors. Through this solution, customers gained the ability to securely pay their bills at any time of the day.

The Results

Working with Paymentus now offers NES and its customers greater payment convenience and flexibility than was possible through its legacy vendor. Bill payers can now use the NES digital customer portal to easily sign up for AutoPay, pay with digital wallets (PayPal, PayPal Credit, Venmo and Apple Pay) and credit cards, and go paperless with eBills. Walk-in and cash preferred customers also benefit from self-service kiosks, as well as Walmart Bill Pay (WMBP), which allows customers to pay their NES bill at local Walmart stores.

The NES transformation has enabled the utility to offer its customers 11 different payment channels with which to pay their NES bill. Customers now have multiple ways to pay – including new in-person, cash payment options – and can make payments when most convenient.

Since the November 2022 launch, NES has seen:

Post-implementation customer surveys also show that customers now rate “ease of payments” higher than ever before, with overall satisfaction levels also increasing.

Tying this all together is the real-time posting and reconciliation capabilities offered by Agent Dashboard – a standard part of the Paymentus billing and payment solution. Agent Dashboard gives NES staff complete visibility over all transactions, regardless of channel, method or time of payment. NES staff now have an unprecedented view of the billing and payment ecosystem, helping to streamline reconciliation and provide a superior level of customer service.

For staff, the combination of adding convenient in-person bill pay options, intuitive self-service digital payments and Agent Dashboard has greatly reduced the challenge of addressing rising transaction volumes and customer expectations. NES now enjoys a cohesive, comprehensive view of all payments that virtually eliminates the need for manual intervention related to posting, processing and tracking payments – saving staff multiple hours per week related to these activities.