Built for water utilities balancing service and affordability
Helping water utilities improve customer service, recover revenue, and support vulnerable customers
WHY THIS MATTERS
Pressure is mounting from every direction
Rising debt, larger bills, and a growing affordability gap with no easy lever to pull.
DEBT CRISIS
$1B+
Water affordability has become a structural challenge for utilities. Millions of households are behind on payments, while arrears balances continue to grow across major service territories.
Circle of Blue, "Water Debt Investigation," June 2025
BILLS RISING
+24%
Utilities are facing sustained pressure from inflation, infrastructure upgrades, climate resilience investments, and higher operating costs.
Bluefield Research, "U.S. Municipal Utility Water Rates Index 2024," February 2025
CUSTOMERS UNPAID
2M+
Payment hardship is becoming a long-term customer service and collections challenge. More households are requiring payment plans, financial assistance, and proactive outreach, while regulators increasingly expect utilities to demonstrate fair treatment of vulnerable customers.
NRDC, Shutoff Crisis Report, 2024
PROVEN OUTCOMES
Proven in water operations globally
Real results turning operational blind spots into recovered revenue and lower penalties.
£350K+
revenue leakage recovered
Process intelligence exposed revenue leakage hidden across fragmented workflows and exception paths. By creating a digital twin of the operation, the utility identified and recovered value that had previously gone undetected.
~£500K
annual savings projected
The same analysis revealed opportunities to simplify handoffs, eliminate manual effort, and improve process efficiency. A prioritized improvement roadmap was developed with a projected annual savings opportunity of approximately £500,000.
15%
potential rework reduction
Case-level visibility highlighted where work was being duplicated, delayed, or unnecessarily transferred between teams. The resulting process redesign identified a significant opportunity to reduce avoidable rework.
35%
improvement in smart meter conversions
Advanced analytics and real-time agent guidance improved conversion performance, helping a major utility increase smart meter adoption while supporting regulatory targets.
DEEP DIVE SOlutions
The solutions behind every water utility outcome
From customer growth to revenue recovery, these solutions address the operational challenges water providers face every day.
Acquire customers efficiently and onboard them correctly
Customer acquisition is more than enrollment. It includes onboarding, account setup, service activation, customer communications, and the operational processes that create a successful start to the relationship. We help utilities improve conversion, reduce onboarding friction, and accelerate time to value for new customers.
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Turn service interactions into stronger customer relationships
Every field visit, appointment, and home-service interaction creates an opportunity to improve customer experience. We help utilities manage service scheduling, customer communications, appointment support, and service-related inquiries while reducing operational complexity and improving customer satisfaction.
Perform when customers need you most
Storms, outages, service disruptions, and emergency events place extraordinary pressure on customer operations. We help utilities manage surge demand, emergency communications, vulnerable-customer support, and service recovery while maintaining regulatory compliance and service levels.
Improve performance across the revenue lifecycle
From meter reads and billing through payment processing and revenue assurance, we help utilities modernize the processes that drive revenue collection and customer satisfaction. Better visibility, automation, and operational control reduce leakage, improve accuracy, and strengthen cash flow.
- Meter operations
- Billing support
- Revenue assurance
- Payment processing
- Exception management
- Customer billing inquiries
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Recover more revenue with better operational intelligence
Revenue performance depends on more than collections alone. We combine collections, affordability programs, payment plans, customer segmentation, and analytics to improve recovery outcomes while supporting regulatory obligations and customer fairness requirements.
CLIENT SPOTLIGHT
A digital twin uncovered £350K in hidden revenue leakage
Process intelligence mapped over £500K in improvement opportunities across a water utility's case management operation.
A leading water utility knew its case operations had inefficiencies but could not see where revenue was slipping. Spreadsheet reporting was hiding reassignments, ageing cases, SLA breaches, and the cumulative cost of goodwill and compensation payments.
Firstsource built a digital twin of the utility's case management from transactional data, making visible the bottlenecks, reassignment chains, and SLA risk that conventional reporting missed. The twin identified over £350,000 in revenue leakage and mapped a compounding improvement roadmap projecting approximately £500,000 in annual savings.
Firstsource built a digital twin of the utility's case management from transactional data, making visible the bottlenecks, reassignment chains, and SLA risk that conventional reporting missed. The twin identified over £350,000 in revenue leakage and mapped a compounding improvement roadmap projecting approximately £500,000 in annual savings.
£350K+
revenue leakage surfaced
Capabilities
The capabilities behind better water operations
From affordability and collections to process redesign and digital transformation, these are the capabilities utilities use to improve performance, compliance, and customer outcomes.
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Consulting
Design the operation before changing the operation
We help water utilities identify where performance breaks down across customer service, revenue operations, field services, and regulatory processes. Using process intelligence, operating model design, and transformation expertise, we create practical roadmaps that improve service, reduce cost, and strengthen compliance.
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Collections
Recover revenue without creating customer risk
Our collections teams combine digital engagement, customer segmentation, affordability support, and recovery strategies to improve collections performance while protecting customer experience. The approach balances revenue recovery with vulnerability obligations and regulatory expectations.
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Intelligent Back Office
Make every workflow faster, cleaner, and easier to manage
We modernize the operational processes that sit behind the customer experience, from billing and case management to exceptions handling, complaints, and revenue operations. Process intelligence and automation help reduce delays, eliminate rework, and improve operational visibility.
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Tech services
Modernize operations without replacing everything
Our technology teams help utilities connect systems, automate workflows, improve data quality, and deploy AI-enabled solutions that support operational performance. The focus is on accelerating transformation while working within existing technology environments.
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Marketing AI services
Turn customer communications into measurable outcomes
We help utilities improve customer engagement across acquisition, education, billing, collections, conservation programs, and service campaigns. AI-powered insights, personalization, and journey optimization increase response rates while supporting regulatory and customer experience objectives.
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PROOF OF DELIVERY
Process intelligence exposed what reporting missed
Every result comes from a live water-utility engagement, not a model or projection.
£350K+
revenue recovered
A UK water utility's case management had invisible revenue leakage across penalties, goodwill payments, and compensation. Process intelligence and a digital twin identified and mapped the recovery.
~£500K
annual savings identified
Process intelligence mapped a prioritized improvement roadmap with projected annual savings across operational workflows.
15%
potential rework reduction
Workflow analysis exposed ageing cases and unnecessary process loops, identifying opportunities to reduce rework across case operations.
INSIGHTS
Latest from the Firstsource team
Insights from the field, real operations, real outcomes, and perspectives from the people making it work in live operations.
Case Study
How a multi-state US electric utility accelerated $305M through digital outreach
A large, multi-state US electric utility partnered with Firstsource to modernize its collections and customer outreach operations through digital communications. The objective was to supplement existing mailed and field-based processes with timely, electronic outreach that could expand customer response windows, encourage self-serve payments, and reduce reliance on field activity.
CONTACT US
The pressure on water operations is structural. Let's talk about yours.
Tell us where revenue is slipping or costs are climbing and we will respond within one business day.
- Every number on this page traces to a named client engagement, not a forecast.
- Our first conversation is a diagnosis of your operation, not a pitch.
- We have run water utility process intelligence engagements that recovered over £350,000 in one program.