Step Into the New Year with the Right Bill Pay Partner
If you’ve recently visited a Paymentus trade show booth, you may have noticed our team wearing custom Bill the Duck sneakers. This footwear not only keeps our team looking stylish and feeling comfortable throughout these shows, but it also serves as a reminder that finding the right shoe and the right fit is essential for comfort.
There’s a reason doctors will tell you to invest in good shoes (and rest assured, it is an investment). Everything starts from the ground up. If your feet are in pain, your knees, hips and back will all try to work harder to offset this pain. This will lead to major problems down the road – just ask any chiropractor.
The same can be said of the world of billing and payment, where an imperfect billing and payment partner fit can impact everything your customer experience, your biller experience and your bottom line for years to come.
What makes for a shoe-perfect fit when it comes to selecting your ideal provider? Here are a few key ways to identify those that will comfortably take you the extra mile.
They Offer Easily Incorporated Innovation
Innovation is a must in an industry as dynamic as ours. As many clients have told us, customers gauge the digital billing and payment experience not against other billers but other payment experiences as a whole. If a local grocery store can offer digital wallet payments, saved payment information and instant confirmations of a purchase, your customers will expect the same when paying their bill.
“The one thing we like to keep in mind is that our customers are not measuring us based on how other billers communicate or provide service. We’re measured by the comparison of modern ease in ordering a pizza or buying a shirt through Amazon, and tracking the entire process on their phone.”
– Jef Gray, Vice President of Information Technology, Kissimmee Utility Authority
An ideal billing and payment partner is one that proactively delivers new payment methods, channels and capabilities – without disruptive implementations or costly third-party vendors. This is the difference between a good partner and a great partner.
Adding methods and capabilities such as PayPal, chatbots, digital disbursements or even cash payments should be almost as easy as flipping a switch. If your vendor must rely on other vendors to create a “holistic” solution, it’s costing you money, creating unnecessary layers and gaps, and even risking security.
They Offer Capabilities Beyond Billing & Payments
The ideal partner helps you get more from your billing and payment platform. For example, if you’re a utility, offering your customers consumption analytics is one way to bolster the customer experience and optimize the efficiency of energy usage. Paymentus offers one such tool in the form of X3, which incorporates invaluable usage data right into the bill-payment experience.
And just as adding new payment methods shouldn’t necessitate additional vendors, a best-in-class partner should also limit your reliance on external vendors in other ways. For instance, Paymentus offers full-service bill print and mailing services, with PDF and image support and storage, to reduce your costs and maximize the effectiveness of your statements. Billers can streamline their operations by relying on one partner to handle every aspect of the billing and payment process.
Payment adoption is another key area that any great partner will focus upon. Offering cost-efficient payment methods is just half the battle – customers must adopt them for all to benefit. The ideal partner will assist in the promotion of your payment offerings to ensure greater adoption. This is yet another service that Paymentus offers – at no charge to our clients.
They Are Thought Leaders
Henry Ford once famously said that if he had asked people what they wanted, they would’ve said faster horses. While it’s important to listen to customers, it’s more important to understand the market drivers and get ahead of expectations.
If it feels as if your partner is reactionary, or worse, reliant on your team to dictate its roadmap, you will create nothing more than faster horses. The perfect fit will combine proactive consultancy with technical expertise – i.e., they will see the need for a holistic cash bill pay offering and deliver the software solution to make it happen.
Lace’em Up and Make 2024 Your Best Year Ever
Whether it’s Bill sneakers or even duck boots, the fact is, if the fit isn’t right it’s going to hurt more than your feet. Whether you’re in need of ongoing innovation, marketing support or simply a partner that knows the ins and outs of your business, take the time to find a provider that checks all of your boxes.
Want to win a pair of your very own Bill sneakers? Take this special quiz and enter your information for your chance to find the perfect fit for your business and your feet.
