Billing and Payments in 2020: Ten Best Practices to Drive Digital Adoption and Engagement, Help Customers and Reduce Your Costs

1. Provide multiple options for consumers to pay bills, make payment arrangements and receive notifications as different generations have different needs and preferences. Older generations may be looking to pay by phone as the branch offices they usually pay at are temporarily closed, while younger cohorts may be more comfortable conducting all their transactions on mobile devices.
2. Educate your customers on how digital billing and payment options work and the benefits of using them to increase adoption. Over the past several years, there has been a steady shift in self-service digital billing and payment options, and the recent global effects have rapidly accelerated this change in consumer preferences.
3. Ensure remote data security and PCI compliance with secure IVR and CSR payment options that don’t unnecessarily expose sensitive data. Instead of three call centers, you may now be managing hundreds of call centers as employees work at home, so it’s critical to address PCI and data security requirements.
4. Deliver funds to consumers faster with digital disbursements to a debit card, for example, via Visa Direct or Mastercard Send’s real-time platforms. Now more than ever, speed in delivering these funds to consumers is of the essence.
5. Offer self-service payment arrangements for past-due customers to reduce call center volume and increase customer satisfaction. Online and mobile payments acceptance and payment plan options like promise to pay, delay and defer payment, and virtual appointments provide access 24 hours a day, seven days a week and reach those who may be uncomfortable talking on the phone.
6. Enable secure, contactless payments at the point of sale with P2PE-validated, card-present terminals. Encrypting card data within the terminal itself keeps sensitive information from passing through your systems.
7. Consolidate to one partner for all your billing and payment needs to deliver a consistent customer experience and improved back-office efficiencies. Consolidation can also reduce your costs and headaches with just one vendor to manage.
8. Deliver a consistent customer experience to increase confidence in and usage of digital billing and payment channels. An inconsistent payments experience can drive up call center inquiries and customer frustration.
9. Deliver innovative solutions faster when you engage with a partner focused on billing and payments. You focus on your core business while your partner focuses on securely and accurately managing your billing and payments process.
10. Mitigate fraud by using payment solutions with built-in fraud detection and prevention; remind consumers of your official billing and payment channels to reduce the impact of scams.

Whether you serve customers with utilities, mortgages or insurance, providing billing and payment choices has always been key to driving satisfaction. Offering alternative options is now is essential, as the ways that customers have historically paid may not be possible today (or even tomorrow). Understanding how these options work and providing a consistent billing experience will go a long way to increasing adoption.

Beyond enabling these payment and billing options that provide greater consumer choice, partnering with the right provider can provide additional security and compliance benefits, while delivering innovative solutions faster and increasing staff efficiency.

See how ACI Speedpay®, driven by new Delay My Payment and Manage My Payment features, can help you better serve your consumers during this time. Contact us at [email protected] or click here to learn more.