NeonLink, LLC History/Background: NeonLink,LLC was formed in mid-2014 after key employees acquired Enerlyte, LLC (www.enerlyte.com). Enerlyte, LLC was started in 2009 as a result of a business opportunity research project at Brigham Young University. Initially the project focused on working with municipal utilities to help them align their customer communication and conservation goals with consumers by putting energy and/or water-usage comparison information directly on an enhanced, printed utility bill that city residents would receive in the mail each billing period. Each enhanced bill can show utility service consumption in a colorful, graphical comparison with the average usage of a peer group of city residents who live in a home of similar size and age, and who have similar seasonal consumption characteristics. In addition, the enhanced bill includes energy and/or water reduction tips specific to each customer. Third party-verified statistical analysis (available for review upon request) has shown up to a 2 percent average annual savings when comparing control group customers (who continued to received the original utility bill) with those customers receiving the enhanced, peer-group comparison bill. In just over five years of operation, we have helped our municipal electric utility partners reduce CO2 emissions by over 100 million pounds and saved millions of gallons of water!
In the process of working with many municipal utilities, we developed methods to seamlessly and securely transfer their billing data, regardless of native format, from the municipality, through our system for processing, and then on to the bill printer for enhanced bill-print. All of this takes place in a matter of minutes. Our web-based dashboards give the utility’s CSRs and management more detailed information about their customer’s billing history and energy/water usage characteristics than they’ve ever had before with their billing systems alone. Soon, our partner utilities were requesting that bill notification, electronic bill presentation, and on-line/mobile payment options be added to our web portal that was already accessible by their customers.
As we researched how other card processors work with utilities we noticed that they had two problematic things in common. The first is that they advertise their own brand and services to your customers. For example, the web pages where utility bill payments are made prominently display the processor’s logo instead of the utility’s. The second is they want you (the utility) to change your data and procedures to conform to the processor’s way of doing things. By contrast, NeonLink designed our system so that all communication and interactions with your customer are designed to look and feel like they are coming directly from you. We do this with your existing data and processes.
NeonLink is unique from other credit card processors in that we do much more than competitors who simply take your city resident’s money plus a substantial percentage or convenience fee, and pass the balance back to you. Our bill-pay user interface is the best in the industry and lets your citizens pay their utility bills easily and without the feeling of navigating away from your city’s website to do so. We also provide your customers with valuable, up-to-date information about their water usage history and we give them water conservation tips and tools so that they feel more in control of their utility bills. As a result, they will make fewer high-bill complaints and other calls to your customer service reps. This lowers your business and purchased water costs and improves your customer satisfaction ratings. We also typically achieve significant increases in the number of residents paying online which reduces late payments, misplaced bills, and other payment issues.
Utilities who have installed NeonLink’s integrated bill notification, bill presentment, and bill payment solution immediately save money, achieve greater electronic bill-pay utilization, enjoy higher customer satisfaction levels, encounter fewer “high-bill” complaints, and experience reduced demand on their call center from customers trying to understand, monitor, and optimize their own water usage. We will do all of this while significantly lowering your utility’s current payment processing costs. And finally, we are always willing to provide you with an online demonstration of our web portal, mobile app, and notification services at your convenience.