For billing organizations, few aspects of the payments process present a greater challenge than a limited electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) platform. Particularly in today’s climate, customer needs are shifting more than ever towards digital payments, a fact that bodes well for billing organizations with innovative payment solutions that can keep pace.

Organizations that have neglected to invest in expanded payment options, however, can experience negative repercussions both internally and externally. For example, one of the major drawbacks of limited payment processing is the poor user experience an outdated EBPP platform can create. Negative customer experiences – even as few as one negative experience – has the potential to make a far-reaching impact on internal efficiencies.

This can mean low customer satisfaction rates, low customer engagement, and low rates of online payment adoption – all of which translates to wasted organizational time, increased printing and mailing costs, and slowed internal processes. Without a well-optimized EBPP platform to drive customers to self-service routes like online payments, paperless billing, and automatic payments (AutoPay), billing organizations are likely to face these internal consequences and worse.

The City of Monroe, Michigan, was struggling with these challenges, all stemming from a limited digital payment platform that only processed tax, water, and sewer bills. This was deterring customers from paying online due to a poor user experience and therefore creating unnecessary work for staff.

To improve internal efficiencies and the payment experience overall, the City of Monroe was searching for an innovative EBPP solution. After implementing Invoice Cloud, the city was able to expand their payment processing and offer a much-improved user experience, which drove adoption and decreased organizational costs.

Limited payment platforms cannot meet demand

The City of Monroe’s existing payment platform was unable to meet the changing demands and expectations of its customers. The system was only able to process tax, water, and sewer bills, and could not process any other invoice types generated by their billing software creating a frustrating user experience and low levels of self-service, while increasing mail and in-person payments.

The organization struggled with other challenges, including:

• Limited online payment options
• Lack of self-service functionality
• Excessive staff time being used to address payment questions
• High costs associated with paper bills

Monroe needed an innovative payment solution that could expand payment capabilities and allow a variety of city bills to be processed online. The billing team knew this would help provide a better user experience thereby increasing e-adoption and increasing collections efficiency.

Improving user experience with expanded payment options

To ease staff workloads and cut rising organizational costs – among other critical billing objectives – the City of Monroe chose to partner with Invoice Cloud to expand their payment functionality.

After implementing with Invoice Cloud, the City of Monroe has seen several benefits, including:

• A better user experience to drive more digital payments
• Increased self-service adoption to reduce calls and walk-ins
• Accelerated e-adoption with omni-channel payment options
• Decreased print and mail costs

The positive results of these expanded payment options were evident within six months of implementing with Invoice Cloud.

The enhanced user experience resulted in higher customer satisfaction rates across the board, which drove a 77% spike in paperless enrollment and a 41% increase in e-payments. Since customers were opting for self-service routes in previously unseen numbers, staff workloads were significantly reduced, internal efficiencies were improved, and organizational costs were slashed.

Driving self-service to improve staff efficiencies

The City of Monroe is a great example of how expansive payment processing capabilities can create a better user experience, which drives customers to self-service and greatly improves internal efficiencies.

To read the full results of the City of Monroe’s success with Invoice Cloud, download the case study below:

To learn more about how Invoice Cloud can help your organization implement a seamless software integration, schedule a demo today.