Hardship applications

How do we capture a hardship request once, chase the documents until complete, decide it by rule or by a reviewer, and write the result to the account?

Make hardship one application that routes to the right relief. When a customer reports a hardship (a job loss, an illness, a death in the household, a disaster, a fixed income that cannot cover the arrears), Callvu identifies them and prefills the account (the balance, the collection state, the programs already on the account, the protections), captures the hardship once with the questions the relief options need, classifies the relief the rules and the policy provide (a hardship fund grant, a waiver of fees or deposits, an extended arrangement, a referral to the assistance programs, a protective status), lists the documents each requires, chases them through a link with reading and checks, applies the rule-based reliefs at once (the fee waiver, the collection hold during review), routes the discretionary reliefs to the hardship reviewer in the Decision Desk with the complete application, and writes the decisions and the referrals to the billing system and the CIS with the customer told in writing.

In scopeComplex: multi-party handoffsCallvu moves: chase and verify, decide, write back

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Last updated November 7, 2026.

The problem today

The customer told the story four times to four teams, each of which owned one form of help and none of which told the others.

Today, without Callvu

Hardship help at a utility is fragmented: the hardship fund has a form, the fee waiver a policy, the extended arrangement a desk, the assistance programs an agency, the protective status a certificate. The customer who has just lost a job is asked to find each one, and the collections calendar does not wait while they do. The relief that would have worked is the one they never heard of.

The commission's rules and the utility's policy define the reliefs: a hardship fund with its own eligibility, the waivers the tariff allows, the extended arrangements for hardship, the referrals the program rules require the utility to make, and the protections. Each has documents and a decision; most can be classified from one set of answers. The application should be one, and it should route to everything the customer qualifies for.

One story, told once, routed to every relief that fits, is the whole difference.

How it runs

From the requestto the system of record.

A customer reports a hardship in any channel (a call, the app, a link on a notice, an agency referral, an AI assistant). Callvu identifies them and opens the hardship application.

Customer: Describes the hardship once, answers the relief options' questions and uploads the documents on their phone.
Hardship reviewer: Decides the discretionary reliefs in the Decision Desk with the complete application.
Assistance agencies: Receive the referrals and respond through their links.
Callvu: Prefills, captures, classifies the reliefs, chases, applies rule-based reliefs, routes and writes.

Capture and classify
The account, the balance and the collection state, the programs and the protections already on the account are prefilled; the hardship is captured once (the type and the date, the household, the income change, the duration expected) with the questions the relief options need; the reliefs the rules and the policy provide are classified for this hardship: the hardship fund and its eligibility, the fee and deposit waivers the tariff allows, the extended hardship arrangement terms, the assistance programs to refer to (with their categorical rules), a protective status or a medical certificate path where the facts indicate one; the collection hold during review is applied where the policy provides it.
Chase and verify the documents
The documents each relief requires are listed once (the termination letter or the benefit award for a job loss, the medical statement for an illness, the death certificate, the disaster declaration match for the address, the income evidence) and requested through a link with the specifics; each is read on arrival and checked against the relief's rule; what is missing is chased on the schedule, and the application is marked complete when the documents for the reliefs it qualifies for are in.
Decide
The rule-based reliefs (the late fee waiver, the deposit waiver, the collection hold, the referral to the assistance programs with the customer's consent, the arrangement at the hardship terms) are applied at once; the discretionary reliefs (the hardship fund grant and its amount, a waiver beyond the policy, an arrangement beyond the hardship terms, a write-off) go to the hardship reviewer in the Decision Desk with the complete application and the checks and only the allowed outcomes (grant, grant in part with the reason, refer, or deny with the reasons and the options).
Write back and notify
Each relief with its terms, the referrals and their status, the holds and the decisions are written to the billing system and the CIS, the customer receives the written result with every relief granted and the referrals made, the arrangement and the program enrollments start through their processes, and the application is kept so a later contact starts from it.

Where it ends: The customer told the hardship once, was routed to every relief that fit, had the documents checked on arrival, received the rule-based reliefs at once and the reviewer's decisions with reasons, and the billing system holds the result. The Decision Trace shows the relief classification, each document's check and the decisions; the Audit Trace shows the capture, the chases, the referrals and the writes with time.

Runtime enforcement

What is enforcedwhile the work runs.

The regulations preloaded in Callvu Studio and the bank's own policies, applied as steps that run, not lines in a binder. A step that breaks a rule does not run, so a completed run was compliant.

Regulations

LIHEAP and state assistance program rules: The federal program's crisis assistance (45 CFR 96.84 and the state plan) provides emergency benefits for households in a crisis within the program's response times, and the state's program rules and the utility's vendor agreement require the utility to refer customers in hardship to the program agencies and to accept their pledges; the referral is a relief the application makes with the customer's consent.
State commission tariff rules on waivers, hardship arrangements and hardship funds: The tariff and the commission's orders set the late fee and deposit waivers the utility may grant for hardship, the extended arrangement terms for customers in hardship or in the protected classes (longer terms, lower down payments), and in many states a ratepayer- or shareholder-funded hardship fund with its own eligibility and administration, often through an agency; the application applies each relief's rule.
State commission disconnection notice rules and vulnerable customer protections: A hardship that involves illness, age, disability or a household member on life support engages the protective statuses and the medical certificate rules, which hold disconnection; the classification routes the customer to those processes where the facts indicate them.

Company policies

The hardship is captured once; every relief the customer qualifies for is classified from it.
Rule-based reliefs are applied at once; the reviewer decides only the discretionary ones, with reasons.
Documents are listed once for all reliefs and checked on arrival; the customer is never asked twice.
The billing system and the CIS are the systems of record for the reliefs, the referrals and the decisions.

Controls

Account and existing program prefill.
Single hardship capture with relief classification.
Document list across reliefs with chases, reading and checks.
Rule-based relief application and collection hold.
Decision Desk for discretionary reliefs.
Billing and CIS write, referrals and written result.

Clocks and deadlines

Collection hold: During review, where the policy provides, on the collections schedule.
Document chase: Reminders on the schedule until the reliefs' documents are in.
Crisis referral: At capture where the facts indicate a crisis, with the program's response times.

Documents and checks

The hardship capture and the relief classification
The documents as received and checked
The rule-based reliefs applied
The reviewer's decisions
The billing record, the referrals and the written result

In the Decision Trace

The relief classification and the rules.
Each document's check.
The decisions and the person.

In the Audit Trace

The capture with channel and time.
Each chase and upload.
Each relief applied, each referral and the writes.

The handoff

Between the front doorand the back office.

The front door

Any channel; the customer tells the hardship once and uploads on their phone.

The back office

The hardship reviewer decides only the discretionary reliefs on a complete application; the agencies receive referrals through their links.

The Decision Desk

The hardship fund grant, a waiver beyond the policy, an arrangement beyond the hardship terms or a write-off goes to the hardship reviewer in the Decision Desk with the complete application and only grant, grant in part with the reason, refer, or deny with reasons and the options.

Proof

In scope.Proof at scale, not one process at a time.

The kind of process Callvu runs in production for customers in this industry. Ask for a reference on this exact process. The results below are the industry's published proof; each claim code links to its record on agents.callvu.com.

More than 1,000 processes are live across Callvu customers.

Across Callvu customers

PSEG Long Island runs start, stop and move service on Callvu, live in 4 weeks.

Across Callvu customers

Questions

What buyers ask next,answered plainly.

What relief can a hardship application lead to?

Everything the rules and the policy provide that fits the facts: a hardship fund grant, fee and deposit waivers, an extended arrangement, referrals to the assistance programs, and a protective status or medical certificate path, classified from one capture.

Which reliefs are automatic?

The rule-based ones: the late fee and deposit waivers the policy allows, the collection hold during review, the referrals with the customer's consent and the arrangement at the hardship terms; the reviewer decides the discretionary ones.

How many times does the customer explain?

Once. The documents are listed once across the reliefs, checked on arrival, and the application is kept so a later contact starts from it.

Related processes

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