The City of Hagerstown, Maryland was stuck dealing with a problematic digital billing and payment solution. The system’s rigid structure left customers feeling frustrated with a poor payment experience and increased workload for staff with numerous collection issues.

It became increasingly clear to the town’s administration that Hagerstown needed a solution that could provide an engaging customer experience with an easy-to-use payment process. The end goal was to remove friction while simplifying enrollment in resource-saving options to increase on-time payments and reduce manual processes. In the words of Beth Everhart, City of Hagerstown Support Services Manager:

“Our goal was to make payments less of a headache, while cutting back on the time we were spending on calls to resolve payment issues.”

Dated payment solution costs time and money

Hagerstown’s original payment system was unable to meet customer demands, as they couldn’t link accounts or use a shopping cart. This not only meant customers were forced to pay bills individually but led to a barrage of calls to the Hagerstown billing office; frustrated customers were looking for CSRs to make manual payments for them, effectively draining staff time and resources. Additionally, more and more users were abandoning the checkout process leading to increased delinquencies and shutoffs due to payment barriers.

The city chose InvoiceCloud as the solution offered everything it needed to increase customer satisfaction, decrease manual workloads, and increase paperless savings. InvoiceCloud allowed Hagerstown to deliver frictionless payment options across channels like pay-by-text and AutoPay — all without switching from their current CIS, a formidable switch they were relieved to avoid.

InvoiceCloud engaging payment experiences increases ROI and boosts morale

After a straightforward integration with InvoiceCloud’s team of experts, Hagerstown began to see the benefits of its customer-centric digital engagement and payment system. Paperless enrollment and self-service adoption skyrocketed by 102% and service shutoffs decreased by 25% with an AutoPay incentive program. The team was able to seamlessly integrate InvoiceCloud with their core CIS and encourage higher ROI with a successful ACH AutoPay conversion to InvoiceCloud. More importantly, customer satisfaction and staff morale significantly improved as lobby traffic and payment-related calls dropped. Employees were able to save 20 hours a month in payment-related workloads!

“With InvoiceCloud we were able to achieve our goals, plus converting our ACH payments to InvoiceCloud was a huge time-saver, giving us time back in the day to focus on more strategic needs.”

Beth Everhart, City of Hagerstown Support Services Manager

To learn more about the City of Hagerstown’s experience with InvoiceCloud, check out the case study here.