- 99.7% of all payments made through digital portal
- 165% lift in online payments during adoption campaign
- 78% increase in average monthly payment volume
The Challenge
Today’s colleges and universities face many unique billing and payment challenges. Student expectations increasingly rely on having access to expanded digital payment options, while staff must rely on systems that seamlessly incorporate all campus commerce to ease reconciliation and increase accuracy.
For Westcliff University, these challenges were amplified due to its need for a billing and payments platform provider. Previously, the university manually processed all payments. This placed a heavy burden on staff members, whose sole responsibilities centered around inputting payment information and updating student accounts.
To speed payments, ensure accuracy, and meet student expectations for simplicity and digital convenience, the university selected Paymentus as its first billing and payments partner.
The Solution
Paymentus was selected by Westcliff University due to its seamless integration with the university’s student information system (SIS), expanded digital payment options, automated capabilities that enabled real-time payment posting, and simplified reporting and reconciliation for staff.
The integration between Paymentus and Westcliff’s SIS created a comprehensive portal for students, wherein they could make payments, view account information, track their payment history, and update information as needed.
Westcliff University could now also offer more payment options than ever before. The university went from two options through its previous setup to major credit and debit cards, ACH/eCheck, and digital wallets (PayPal, PayPal Credit, Venmo, Apple Pay®, and Google Pay™). The expansive variety of payments was especially essential for its vast international student base, who now had easier ways to pay their tuition bills as opposed to paying in person via cash.
The university supported its launch by leveraging the Paymentus Client Adoption Success Team (CAST) in the form of an omnichannel go-live campaign. The campaign featured in-office and campus signage, social media posts, email and text messaging, and exclusive landing page copy—each touting the new portal and the many ways to pay.
The Result
The combination of the CAST go-live campaign and seamless launch proved immediately effective for Westcliff. Students were quick to adopt new digital payment options, taking full advantage of the modernized Student First Portal.
Following the go-live campaign, Westcliff University saw 99.7% of all student payments made through the Student First Portal—an almost unprecedented achievement for a new system. ACH, a new offering within the portal, became the most popular payment method (39%), followed by credit cards (38%), and debit cards (19%). The CAST campaign also delivered a 78% average monthly increase in digital adoption as compared to the two months prior.
The automation achieved through payments digitization was also a boon for Westcliff staff. The team reports that prior to implementation, nearly 200 staff hours per month were spent manually processing payments. Today, that number has been reduced to roughly five hours weekly. Automated payment confirmations and payment due notices have also saved staff time on answering student questions related to payments, providing students with greater peace of mind while allowing Westcliff student support staff to best serve students outside of payments.
