How To Optimize the Customers’ Bill Payment Experience While Increasing Biller Efficiency
When it comes to billing and payment, creating the ideal customer experience is about connecting with and servicing customers where they are. That means providing the appropriate options, channels, and methods to meet the customer’s billing and payment needs.
Prior to the pandemic, Gartner’s article entitled: Payment Acceptance Will Never Be the Same After the COVID-19 Pandemic (Oct 2020) called making a bill payment a ‘matter of conditioning and habit’. The absence of motivation to change familiar and working methods, such as credit cards and cash, meant that the adoption of more innovative payment processes was slow. This is especially true in mature payments markets, such as the U.S. and Western Europe.
Gartner goes on to say that “COVID-19 has provided the impetus to overcome consumer inertia and has created an unprecedented global appetite for changes to how we pay.”
As a result, payment providers must adapt to ride this wave of openness to new and innovative payment processes. Billers themselves must assess emerging payment channels and make those that are both secure and convenient available.
Optimizing the customer payment experience
Today, customers want to choose when and how they pay and be guided through an experience that is both personalized and simple. COVID-19 lockdowns motivated consumers to consider contactless payment options, driving 60% of Europeans and North Americans to try a new payment method over 12 months from May 2020 to May 2021.
To meet modern payment requirements, billers must offer:
- a mobile first experience, that is personalized for each customer
- a variety of payment methods (omnichannel) that are available on demand 24/7
- consistency and seamless switching between methods, as needs and preferences change
- the ability to set notifications that help the consumer to manage their payments
Research shows that most consumers prefer to do bill payments via their mobile device. In fact, The Worldpay Global Payments Report (2020) predicts that digital and mobile wallet usage will increase significantly (11%) in 2023, while credit and debit cards will experience an equivalent decline.
Increasing biller efficiency
Billers want to provide a great customer payment experience, but they also need to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and prepare for the digital future. To this end, billers need to select a payment platform that not only reduces the burden on staff through a streamlined collections and reporting process but does so at a reasonable cost.
The benefits billers can achieve from the right payments platform are:
- Greater operational efficiency due to advanced reporting and streamlined reconciliation process
- Reduced cost to serve based on lower call volumes and less lobby traffic
- Accelerated time to revenue through faster payments
- Increased loyalty from a superior customer payment experience
A payment solution that ticks all the boxes for billers and consumers
Doxim offers a modern, end-to-end payment solution that ticks all the boxes for billers and consumers.
Designed as a mobile-first experience, Doxim Payments provides consumers with control over their payment experience and the ability to personalize various aspects according to their preferences. Consumers have access to a range of payment options (omnichannel) and the ability to seamlessly switch between methods as their preferences evolve. And consumers can set up notifications and reminders that improves the management of their bills, increasing convenience and reducing the likelihood of missing a payment.
For billers, the Doxim Payment solution brings many benefits, including a consistent branded, yet personalized user experience across all payment channels. The Doxim platform provides configurable options to simplify implementation, maintenance, messaging, and ongoing support. In addition, Doxim’s pricing for payments is flexible and configurable, allowing for customized fee models that suit the biller and the consumer.
In addition to a world-class payment platform, Doxim’s experienced team provides advice and best practices regarding the ideal selection of billing and payment channels to satisfy customer requirements.
