The Healthy Billing & Payment Partner Marriage Revisited
By Nicole Haskins
Vice President, Paymentus
During an industry presentation, I had the pleasure of participating in a panel discussion with a client and its additional vendor partners. The conversation touched on a variety of topics that showcased why this client had earned the title of #1 public utility in America.
I’ll never forget it for one of the most profound truths that it helped to uncover. With just three words, the Chief Customer Operations Officer illuminated a key aspect of the relationship between a biller and its billing and payments vendor:
Today, I want to reflect on this sentiment and expand on its meaning as it relates to the evolving mission of service providers in terms of service commerce.
Why a Lasting Billing & Payment Partnership is Beneficial
As I said previously, it would be hard to overstate the importance of finding a vendor that can meet the needs of a business once the honeymoon stage is over. Service providers can confidently offload their billing and payment functions to experts who are well versed in billing, payments, engagement, and the client’s industry and their business.
Solutions are delivered seamlessly, and make the art of serving customers simpler and more strategic. Compliance and regulatory issues are drastically reduced, and sometimes outright eliminated. Cost savings is delivered (which may be one slight difference with a traditional marriage). Mutual benefits are achieved.
Over time, services and capabilities are expanded as needs arise. The rhythm of the relationship becomes sharper, with needs being anticipated and optimization strategies presented proactively. Like that happy couple growing old together, the relationship continues to grow and move into new phases.
What Are the Core Tenets of a Successful Vendor Relationship?
Here are a few core tenets that can help you find and build a long-term relationship with your billing and payment partner.
Trust
Everything starts with trust. As your billing and payment solution provider, our number one objective is to relieve you of the burden that is managing billing and payments. We want your teams to have the faith and confidence that they can focus on their day-to-day, without having to worry about security, processing payments, or optimizing the customer experience.
Growth
Personal growth in a relationship is essential, and growth from your vendor is just as important to the viability of an organization.
The world of billing and payments is highly dynamic and prone to major changes at a moment’s notice. Paymentus offers billers a comprehensive, holistic solution that is natively built from the ground up. Our technology allows us to quickly enable more payment methods and channels than any other provider. This is accompanied by the ability to easily capture data from these new payment types and accommodate shifting consumer needs to consistently future proof your investments. The result is an ever-expansive platform that continuously grows to meet your needs and new business conditions.
Going Above and Beyond
While all marriages begin with vows, there are many actions that cannot be accounted for in said vows or business contracts. When one Paymentus client launched its new billing and payment system, Paymentus team members made it a point to join the client team to celebrate the go-live day.
As part of its new solution, the client could now offer its customers cash bill payments through local Walmart stores. Unprompted, we also visited a local Walmart to ensure the in-store experience was simple and seamless. We found a few gaps within the experience due to being a new process to the Walmart staff, and quickly facilitated a training session to ensure all critical customer cash bill payments were processed seamlessly moving forward.
How Committed Service Commerce Relationships Benefit Customers
As we continue to discuss service commerce and the role we play in helping serve your customers beyond the transaction, it’s vital to consider that the best relationship is the one that benefits the end consumer.
Whether they be in the form of friction-filled experiences, limited payment options, or confusing bills, performance gaps will ultimately impact satisfaction, revenue, and loyalty. While our relationship may be great, if it’s not meeting consumer expectations, it’s not doing its job.
The mutual respect between service provider and billing and payment solution vendor must be centered around one thing: the customer. Our commitment to our clients (i.e., service providers) is really a commitment to their customers. In this way, the end consumer enjoys experiences that make them feel valued and appreciated. They are met where they want to be, not directed to pay, communicate, or receive bills how we decide they should.
The effort here should end in a billing, payment, and engagement experience that fits their needs and preferences, and makes it simple to pay a bill digitally, in person, or even with cash. That’s service commerce done right, and it’s how we do right by our clients.
Paymentus will soon be launching a first-ever performance gap study with PYMNTS featuring more than 2,500 consumers and hundreds of billers. Gain unique insights into the service opportunities and challenges facing many organizations, with actionable strategies on how service providers can improve performance to create closer customer relationships. The results are coming soon and we don’t want you to miss out. Contact us today to request your copy of the report.
