Cocoa, FL stays out of hot water with utility customers, thanks to Nuvei partnership

Overview

The regional water utility in Cocoa, Florida serves and bills the city’s customers as well as those of six neighboring public utilities. By multiple measures, the utility has a significant number of monthly interactions. For example, it serves more than 90,000 water customers, answers more than 12,000 calls each month on a variety of questions, and assists more than 7,500 walk-in visitors. The volume and complexity of Cocoa’s billing means it needs a partner it can trust to maintain its customer service commitments.

The challenge

Cocoa conducts billing activities every day of the month, consuming 18-20 business days. The staff was spending a great deal of time responding to customer questions about billing and errors that arise because water rates differ for the seven utilities that Cocoa administers. In addition, the volume of paper bills accounted for a significant amount of paper and postage. The regional utility sought a payments partner that could mirror its mission to serve the community with P.R.I.D.E.—Professional, Responsive, Innovative, Dedicated, and Exceptional public services.

The solution

Cocoa chose Nuvei in 2014 to handle online bill presentment, providing a customer portal for citizens to make payments online and sign up for automatic payments. A few years later, Cocoa consolidated all its bill statements and mailings with Nuvei, which also handles all payment reconciliation. As part of this partnership, Cocoa collaborated with Nuvei to redesign its water bill form, making it easier for customers to understand their monthly bill. That change dramatically reduced the number of questions and complaints the utility staff received.

A turning point for us was the flexibility Nuvei provided with our software system. They offered us so much freedom to draft what our bill should look like. We were able to get where we wanted to go with Nuvei without us having to change our software.

Jessica Dovale, utility support service manager for Cocoa,

‍