Digital payment adoption can do more than move payments online. When customers regularly use digital billing, payment, and self-service options, billing organizations can reduce print and mail costs, ease staff workloads, improve the customer experience, and help payments arrive on time.
What is digital payment adoption? Also called e-adoption or electronic payment adoption, it describes customers’ use of digital options to pay or receive bills. A broader view of adoption includes self-service actions such as enrolling in AutoPay, signing up for text or email reminders, and opting into paperless billing. For a payment solution to drive results, customers need to use those options — not simply have access to them.
How is e-payment adoption measured? One common measure divides the number of electronic payments made in a period by the total number of bills issued in that period. If an organization issues 10,000 bills in a month and receives 2,500 digital payments, its e-payment adoption rate is 25%. This payment-based measure does not capture every self-service action, so paperless billing and AutoPay enrollment may be worth tracking separately.
The Real-Life Impact of Driving Digital Payment Adoption
1. Extend Your Budget
Print and mail costs add up. When customers choose paperless billing, organizations can spend less on the materials and postage needed to send bills by mail.
Arlington Water Utilities, an Arlington, Texas utility provider, offers a real-world example. Since implementing InvoiceCloud, it has increased paperless billing enrollment by 35%, resulting in $30,000 in annual print and mail savings and more than $900,000 in total savings to date, according to its case study.
2. Reduce Call Volumes
When paying online is difficult, customers may call for help. Those calls take staff time and can make it harder for customers who need assistance to reach a representative. InvoiceCloud research found that billing and payment professionals in some industries spend 10–20 hours a week fielding payment-related calls.
The Town of Elizabeth, Colorado, faced overwhelming call volumes and manual work with its previous electronic billing presentment and payment (EBPP) platform. After implementing InvoiceCloud, the town reported a nearly 50% decrease in calls and 35 hours a month saved on payment-related work.
3. Meet Customer Expectations
Customers want convenient ways to pay. In InvoiceCloud research, 80% of customers said they preferred digital methods for monthly bill payments, with mobile devices the most preferred option. Making digital payments easy to find and use can help organizations meet those expectations.
Convenient payment options can also support more timely payments. After an increase in e-adoption, the Town of Elizabeth reported a 20% decrease in late payments. The City of Wylie, Texas, reported an 18% decrease in utility service shut-offs alongside a rise in timely payments. These are results from individual organizations, not guaranteed outcomes for every biller.
4. Conserve Staff Time
Digital self-service can reduce the time employees spend answering routine payment questions and handling manual tasks. When customers can manage bills and payments themselves, staff may have more time for work that needs their attention—especially when teams are stretched thin.
InvoiceCloud customers have reported improvements in payment-related workflows:
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Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA), a community-owned water utility, saved more than 25 hours per month in payment-related work after implementing an InvoiceCloud EBPP solution.
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Soquel Creek Water District reported a 10% decrease in mailed-in payments, allowing staff to focus on other critical projects.
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EmPRO Insurance increased digital payments and self-service rates. Its chief financial officer, Adam Peterson, said the change “reduced manual processes enabling our busy staff to shift focus to other critical tasks.”
Estimate the Potential Savings from Digital Adoption
Digital billing and payment options can benefit both organizations and their customers, but results depend on whether customers use them. A payment experience that is easy to find, understand, and use can help encourage that adoption.
InvoiceCloud’s digital payment solution is designed to make payments and self-service easier for customers. To explore what increased digital adoption could mean for your organization, try the Digital Payments Estimated Savings Calculator.
