The Monsters (Still) Keeping Billers Up at Night

The scary season and Halloween may be on the horizon, but for today’s billing and payment monsters, every day is a chance to pull some monstrous tricks on unsuspecting billers. As you prepare for that one night of the year where ghosts, ghouls and goblins are warded off by fun-size candy bars, here are some updated insights into how you can tame and contain your monsters throughout the year.

Two Decades of Taming

Whether it’s security, innovation, system orchestration or any of the remaining nine challenges – aka monsters – we’ve identified in our 20 years of experience, they all hamper your ability to collect payments as efficiently as possible. Paymentus monster-taming experts Nicole Haskins and Chris Trainor have been at the forefront of this battle, successfully helping thousands of clients tame their billing and payment monsters.

Recently, the duo shared their monster-taming insights with FinTech Magazine – a leading digital magazine focusing on newsworthy high-profile fintech organizations. Within the wide-ranging piece, Haskins shared an observation that should have all billers re-examining their solution:

At Halloween, you know which houses to visit because they leave the lights on. But these monsters prefer to lurk in the shadows. How can you identify the ones hiding in your business? We’re glad you asked.

It All Starts With Asking the Right Questions

The monsters keeping you up at night can be hard to pinpoint (that’s how they like it). That’s why Paymentus developed this Monsters quiz, aimed at helping you identify which monster is giving your organization the most trouble.

The 11 question quiz covers the entirety of the billing and payment process, helping to identify potential gaps or address situations that may not be in a particular biller’s purview. These questions are specifically designed to reveal your biggest pain points and create discussions within your organization. These questions include:

High abandonment rates are the byproduct of clunky payment experiences that impact a customer’s payment journey. The monster behind this problem is called Brock, and he’s quite the blockhead. But he can be tamed by delivering a cohesive bill pay experience, offered through a single vendor, one gateway and no layers.

Self-service payments increase customer satisfaction while decreasing your cost to serve (nail this part and your organization is set for long-term success.) Here, the monsters can cause any number of issues from confusing payment portals to limited payment options or delayed confirmations. While Paymentus can address these customer problems that impact everything from adoption to customer confusion, the key is to pinpoint the monster, isolate it and contain it.

Security concerns, revenue management, cost to serve, siloed systems, and poor reporting and reconciliation are just a few of the answers to be found here. While our holistic solution can address each of these, the answer here is highly personal. Our goal is to address what’s keeping you up at night.

The interesting thing is that most people we talk to can answer this question without hesitation. As you read this, you likely had an immediate answer. It’s our goal to see to it that our clients rest easy, knowing their monsters are totally under control.

Next Steps On Your Taming Journey

If you’ve taken the quiz, you’ve already taken your first step toward taming your billing and payment monsters. But one of the biggest actions you can take does not involve a technical solution or meeting with prospective partners.

Trainor points out that inertia, aka the monster we call Ingrid, is one of the most stifling monsters that a biller can have. As he told FinTech Magazine, “Those that apply broad, cross-functional solutions focused on elevating their user experiences have the best outcomes.”

Achieving consensus is then crucial. As Haskins points out, the different teams within a biller’s organization are trying to solve different problems – and each may have their own motivations. However, when teams are aligned, they can identify problems, or monsters, that overlap in ways they hadn’t even considered.

For this reason, we recommend that billers create a culture that prioritizes modernization as a core underpinning of its operations. This can come in the form of regular touch bases with cross-function key stakeholders, incentive programs for team members identifying problems or opportunities, or dedicated data reviews.

If you’re not sure where to start, your billing and payment partner should be able to help you hone in on the monsters impacting performance. Whether it’s the questions within our quiz or a meeting with a Paymentus expert, we can help you drill down, surface issues and propose solutions that are aligned with your strategy.

Getting a Good Night’s Sleep

There’s an old saying that goes, “If everyone does a little, no one has to do a lot.” Organizations that can adopt a mindset where everyone takes ownership of taming their monsters fare far better than those that rely on a very limited number of guardians.

Beyond limiting issues, the solutions that can tame monsters are also those that offer customers and staff more satisfying billing and payment experiences. Customers can enjoy intuitive, expanded self-service options that are simple and convenient, while staff can automate many manual processes, gain greater visibility into every transaction, speed reporting and reconciliation.

The monsters may not rest but that doesn’t mean you need to stay up 24/7. That’s what we’re here for! Join our monster-taming experts for our upcoming All Monsters’ Eve webinar. Plus, read the full FinTech Magazine article for more insights from Chris and Nicole!