New Electrical Bill Tells Customers A Detailed Story

Belmont Municipal Light Department customers will be seeing a more streamlined, detailed electric bill in the mail for the next billing cycle to be issued this month.  

Account and Customer Service Director Kristina Frizzell said that the new billing system, using Cogsdale Software, allowed the Department to redesign the bill, making it one sided and listing pertinent details customers may be interested in.

"A lot of people were finding the bill confusing because it was two sides, so we made it one sided with a little more simplicity," said Frizzell. 

"I feel like the old bill was busier, so we put the information on one side and shortened it up."

The old bill had details such as customer credits on the back side. The new bill will now feature credits on the front with specifics so customers can track rebates that they sent into BMLD. 

Account activity is broken out providing specific information about adjustments, such as credits. Rebates for a dishwasher, air conditioner unit or refrigerator will be listed with a description to notify customers that BMLD received their appliance.

For example, "Front Load Clothes Washer: Rebate" with the dollar amount will be found in under "Account Activity," so customers can better track expected credits.   

Under "Historical Consumption Data," residents can find their daily average usage data to assist them in tracking the utility consumption per month.

The new feature, accompanied by the bar graph and total usage by month, delivers numerical figures for the average usage by day for the entire month. 

Tracking use made easy

"We hope people will look at it, and find it informative to help them see how their usage has changed from month to month, and they can see why their bill may be higher in one month like January," said Frizzell.

Communicating with their customer is important to BMLD, and as such an "Important Message" section is dedicated to informing people on ways to conserve energy, special events, or account specific messages.

"We were given templates as to what Cogsdale could do, and we tweeked it to what we preferred," said Frizzell.

Frizzell said they are open to suggestions from customers on how they can further improve their services, and they are working on providing further information to allow customers to see usage by color coded bars designating peak and off peak usage.

Billing according to peak usage was not possible with the older MUNIS system. The cost, which changes during the day, Frizzell said is comparable to cell phone usage.

"It does cost more to buy off the market during the day, because people are using more electricity, at this time we don't pass that cost onto the customer."

Peak time is from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. As of now, customers are charged a flat rate for kilowatt usage. 

In the future, BMLD will begin billing for peak usage, and the customer can also track their usage accordingly. 

That can assist customers in their conservation efforts.

"People will be able to see that they are spending money during the day and when they are not even home, so maybe they can shift that usage during a time when it costs less."

Their goal is to have that information and meter system completed by the fall of 2011. However, new meters will need to be installed in order to track the peak usage. 

BMLD currently has a total of 11,000 customers in Belmont, 9,600 of which are residents. They encourage customer feedback on their services including the new bill. 

"We have an e-mail set up to send out an update every week to our customers that are on the list, and if people have questions regarding anything they can email us at that address," said Jennifer Santoro, energy services and communications coordinator. 

Customer can e-mail:

BMLDupdates@belmont-ma.gov

to be placed on the Project Update mailing list.