Take the next step in your career with WilSon Energy Limited – one of the UK’s leading providers of fully integrated Heating, Metering and Billing Services.

The Opportunity

WilSon Energy is seeking a Residential Credit Controller & Debt Recovery Officer to manage customer arrears across our residential metering and billing portfolio.

The successful candidate will be responsible for proactively contacting customers with outstanding balances, understanding the reasons for non-payment and working with customers to achieve appropriate and sustainable payment solutions.

The role requires a professional, confident and empathetic approach. While achieving effective debt recovery is an important objective, particular emphasis will be placed on treating customers fairly, recognising vulnerability and financial difficulty, and delivering positive customer outcomes.

The role will predominantly involve residential customers receiving heating, hot water and other utility services through communal or heat network arrangements.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage an allocated portfolio of residential customer accounts with outstanding balances and arrears.
• Proactively contact customers by telephone, email, letter and other approved communication channels.
• Investigate outstanding balances and establish the reason for non-payment.
• Agree realistic and sustainable repayment arrangements within agreed company and client parameters.
• Monitor payment arrangements and follow up promptly where payments are missed.
• Undertake structured multi-stage debt recovery activity for both current and historic arrears.
• Maintain accurate records of all customer communications, promises to pay, payment arrangements and recovery actions.
• Identify customers experiencing financial difficulty and ensure the appropriate support processes are followed.
• Recognise and appropriately manage customers in vulnerable circumstances, including customers recorded on or eligible for the Priority Services Register (PSR).
• Signpost customers to appropriate independent debt, energy and financial-support organisations where required.
• Consider affordability and individual customer circumstances when discussing repayment arrangements.
• Escalate accounts appropriately where reasonable attempts to secure payment have been unsuccessful.
• Liaise with clients, housing providers, managing agents and internal departments where necessary to resolve account queries or disputed balances.
• Handle customer information confidentially and in accordance with GDPR and WilSon Energy’s data-protection requirements.
• Follow company complaints and escalation procedures and ensure dissatisfied customers are treated fairly and professionally.
• Work towards agreed collection, arrears-reduction and customer-service KPIs without compromising appropriate customer outcomes.
• Undertake other reasonable duties associated with residential credit control, billing and debt management.

Regulatory & Customer Responsibilities

The role operates within WilSon Energy’s regulated heat-network billing environment. The successful candidate will therefore be expected to follow the company’s procedures relating to Ofgem heat-network consumer protection requirements, vulnerability, affordability, debt management, complaints and customer communications, together with applicable Heat Trust standards.

Training will be provided where required, but the postholder must demonstrate a strong commitment to treating customers fairly and recognising that customers experiencing payment difficulty may require additional support.

Skills & Experience

Essential

• Previous experience is not necessary as full training will be provided.
• Confident telephone manner with the ability to conduct sometimes difficult conversations professionally.
• Strong negotiation and communication skills.
• Ability to remain calm and professional when dealing with challenging or distressed customers.
• Good numerical skills and ability to understand account balances and payment histories.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage and prioritise a portfolio of accounts.
• Accurate record keeping and good attention to detail.
• Competent IT skills and confidence using customer/account management systems.
• Ability to work independently while contributing effectively within a wider billing and customer-service team.

Desirable

Experience within utilities, energy, heat networks, housing, property management or residential services would be advantageous, as would previous experience of vulnerable-customer processes, payment plans, affordability discussions, regulated collections or working with housing associations and managing agents.

Personal Attributes

We are looking for somebody who is:

• Confident and persistent without being confrontational.
• Empathetic and able to adapt their communication style to individual customers.
• Commercially aware while remaining customer-focused.
• Comfortable discussing money and outstanding debt.
• A good listener who can identify the underlying cause of non-payment.
• Solutions-focused and able to negotiate practical outcomes.
• Resilient when dealing with difficult conversations.
• Reliable, organised and accountable for their own workload.
• Able to exercise judgement and recognise when an account requires escalation or additional support.

Key Measures of Performance

Performance would be assessed through a balanced range of measures, including reduction in aged debt, collection levels, successful repayment arrangements, adherence to agreed recovery processes, accuracy of customer records, resolution of account queries, customer-service standards, appropriate treatment of vulnerable customers and regulatory compliance.

Package and benefits:

• Job Type: Full-time
• Salary: £26-28K + phone + laptop
• Office based from Newark on Trent HQ
• Full training provided

Please send your CV and covering letter to Andy@wilsonenergy.co.uk.

 

WilSon Energy, a leading provider of integrated heating and billing solutions for UK Heat Networks and District Heating schemes, has selected the bank payment company GoCardless to collect customer bills automatically. The move will help WilSon Energy achieve substantial cost savings and simplify how customers pay their recurring energy bills.

Through this collaboration, as part of its billing and bureau services for residential and commercial occupiers, WilSon plans to integrate GoCardless’ Direct Debit and open banking solutions directly into its core billing software. This allows WilSon Energy to eliminate expensive card fees and free up team members from manual administration thanks to automating its entire billing process – with the company projected to make significant operational savings annually.

This move will provide WilSon Energy customers with a trusted, automatic way to pay their monthly bills, which, in turn, will help reduce payment failures and improve overall customer satisfaction. Additionally, the partnership will support the company’s ambitious growth plans by bringing all its payment methods onto one scalable, easy-to-manage system and improve recovery of utility receipts on behalf of its clients.

Andy Wilkinson, Managing Director at WilSon Energy Ltd, said: “We provide end to end integrated heating and billing solutions designed for the modern age and that means continually optimising our core processes. By choosing GoCardless, we are achieving significant cost savings and automating complex payment admin, which lets our team focus on delivering excellent customer service and growth. This partnership is key to ensuring our financial operations are as reliable and modern as the billing management services we supply to assist property management companies and residents get the best service and value from their utilities.”

Pat Phelan, Chief Revenue Officer at GoCardless said: “The energy sector needs reliable, low-cost recurring payments. WilSon Energy recognises that manual administration and high card fees are simply unsustainable. GoCardless is the perfect fit for them, offering the stability of Direct Debit and the cost-effectiveness of open banking, coupled with a modern, integrated solution that drives down costs and ensures customers can always pay their bills reliably and automatically.”

For installers, heating engineers or property and facilities managers, the costs, time and hassle involved in upgrading a heat network can be expensive and disruptive. As one of the UK’s leading providers of fully integrated heating, metering, pay-as-you-go and billing and bureau services, WilSon Energy believes direct HIU replacement services provide the ideal alternative.

It’s inevitable that with constant wear and tear, a heat interface unit (HIU) will eventually go beyond its repairable life – even with regular management and maintenance in place. Often when this is the case, it is easy to consider installing replacement HIU’s, which is costly and can involve significant disruptive work and extensive pipework modifications. An alternative, more efficient and cost-effective solution is to carry out a direct HIU replacement – swapping out an old HIU for a new one, with no additional installation or repair work.

As an approved UK partner, stockist and distributor for market leading HIUs, plus our own range of units and online spare parts store, we understand that there are over 70,000 KaMo/KVM Energi units installed on heat network systems across the UK. Many single plate heat exchanger units are installed, since the early 2000’s in older residential developments or commercial properties and we have over 15 years of experience supplying spare parts to keep heating systems running efficiently with minimal cost and effort.

Tried and trusted

Over time, our customers have realised we are not only a supplier of complete HIU’s and spare parts. Our network of trained engineers across the UK provide full service and maintenance for HIUs with unrivalled expertise – if our customers aren’t sure of the parts needed, we can advise remotely, providing a quote and stock availability.

We know that time is money, so we’ve also designed units that act as a complete replacement that can be installed with ease. As the connection configuration is the same, as well as the pipework centres, there’s no need for complicated pipework modifications. It is as simple as isolating the valves on the existing unit replacing it on the wall and bringing back into service, and the old cover can even be used without having to replace it.

Bespoke and flexible

Flexibility of these bespoke services are a key benefit, but it’s the savings delivered straight back that really make the difference. With so many property and maintenance managers focused on sustainability and environmentally-friendly utility solutions, as well as being under pressure to keep costs to a minimum, being able to replace a unit rather than the whole system has added appeal, and is just one example of why WilSon Energy is one of the UK’s leading providers of fully integrated Heating, Metering, Pre-Payment and Billing & Bureau Services for residential homes and commercial developments.

Contact the WilSon Energy team to discuss your next heat network project.