"Good" Is Not Good Enough: The State of Utility Billing in 2026

Part 2 of KUBRA's 2026 Utility Customer Experience Blog Series

Striving for excellence should always be the goal for any utility. They may not get there every time, but settling for good enough will never lead to standout customer experiences. Unfortunately, good is exactly what most utilities are currently delivering. While most customers aren’t unhappy with their utility billing experience, they’re not impressed either. 

Our research found that 45% of customers rate their experience as "Good". Initially, this may seem positive, as almost half of customers rate their payment experience as good. But customers have moved past good and are looking for more.

The Benchmark Has Shifted

Customer experiences don’t happen in isolation, meaning utility payment experiences aren’t just compared to other utility payment experiences. Customers simply compare experiences, like how easy it is to make a payment in their bank app versus their streaming service or online grocery store. Every interaction sets the bar for the next one.

In that context, "Good" doesn't differentiate or sustain trust in the face of a rate increase or a billing dispute. The utilities that understand this aren't just improving transactions, they're building something harder to maintain: trust. 

The "Fair/Poor" Segment

Approximately 31% of customers rate their utility payment experience as “Fair”, “Poor”, or “Very Poor”. Utilities need to pay attention to this segment, because it’s not a small number. These customers are hitting real friction, like payment errors, confusing bills, and inaccessible support, all of which have downstream consequences. 

Delays in payments and increased support calls drive up operating costs. But the longer-term cost is harder to measure. Every unresolved friction point quietly chips away at the customer relationship, and that erosion is rarely apparent until it's already done damage. 

The Danger of Normalizing Average

In a low-engagement category like billing, customers really only notice the experience when it goes badly. When success is a minimum expectation, failures are disproportionately memorable and quietly build into a trust deficit.

What the Data Is Really Saying

Consider that 60% of customers now pay their bills through their utility's digital channels (i.e., website or mobile app). For utilities, this means the payment portal is no longer just a transaction tool but a primary relationship touchpoint, and how it performs shapes customers' overall perception of the utility.

Against that backdrop, only 25% of utility customers rate their experience as "Excellent", notably the lowest segment, and a significant gap from "Good" at 45%. It can be tempting to think that adding more features will close the experience gap. But the reality is that it’s not about more but actually about ensuring customers know what’s already available to them.

This means meeting customers where they already are: revealing AutoPay options at the right moment, explaining budget billing programs before a customer hits a high bill, and making support feel accessible. These features already exist, and now there’s an opportunity to make them feel obvious. 

The infrastructure is there. The question is whether utilities will treat the "Good" majority as a success story or as an invitation to do better.

This is the second post in KUBRA's 2026 Utility Customer Experience Blog Series, based on original research from our white paper, The Utility Billing and Payment Journey: Identifying Where Customer Friction Still Exists.

Read the full white paper