Just as billing and payments are an essential arm of local government, increased customer satisfaction is an essential metric for evaluating an effective online payment platform. Without a payment solution that can improve and maintain customer satisfaction rates, collections offices are missing out on decreased call volumes and overall smoother collections efficiencies.  

This begins with the process of driving customers to your online payment platform, otherwise known as electronic or e-adoption. Higher adoption rates mean more customers are using your online payment channels which ultimately leads to improved customer satisfaction, fewer complaints from constituents, on-time taxes, and more.

Adoption rates can only increase – bringing all those major benefits with them – if your online payment solution provides a positive experience that satisfies the expectations of today’s modern taxpayer. 

Simply put: if constituents use your online payment channel and are dissatisfied with its ease of use, they will not use it, and your organization could miss out on significant business results. 

James City County, Virginia, was struggling with this very challenge. The county needed a digital payment platform that could stay on top of evolving customer needs, thrill customers, and deliver better results for their organization. After working with InvoiceCloud, James City County saw those long-awaited results with a dramatic drop in collections costs and fewer mailed in payments, all stemming from an increase in e-payment adoption. 

Outdated platforms create poor user experiences 

Finding an innovative payment solution was a major priority for James City County, specifically to drive better customer experiences. The county’s existing electronic bill presentment and payment platform (EBBP) was unable to keep pace with their customers’ rapidly changing expectations, and their collections efficiencies were suffering as a result. 

Other challenges included: 

• Limited payment options 
• Lack of self-service functionality 
• Too much staff time being used to take payments
• High costs associated with paper bills 

James City County understood that these issues tied back to the poor payment experience their customers were encountering. The lack of payment and self-service options (i.e. AutoPay, paperless billing) was actively discouraging customers from online payments. Ultimately, the county’s poor online experience drove customers to pay through manual methods, which took up a tremendous amount of staff time and drained organizational resources. 

Adapting to customer expectations drives results 

Once James City County realized their organizational challenges were caused by their outdated customer experience, they knew it was time to make a change. They needed a digital payments provider that could improve their customer experience with expanded payment options and an easy-to-use interface.  

Since implementing with InvoiceCloud, James City County has realized significant benefits, including: 

• Increased self-service and higher customer satisfaction due to superior user experience 
• Improved collections efficiencies with the increase in e-adoption 
• Lower print and mail costs due to higher paperless adoption 
• Quick and easy technology updates with a true SaaS platform to meet evolving payment preferences 

The billing team at James City County was especially thrilled with the sizeable decrease they saw in mailed and in person payments, which dropped by 46% with their new-and-improved online payment system. 

“The InvoiceCloud platform helped us cut mailed and in person payments in half, enabling us to shift resources to other areas of need,” said Jennifer Tomes, Treasurer of James City County. “In fact, it decreased mailed in payments so much that we never fell behind on processing these payments in a single day in the past cycle — a first in my 20+ years of processing payments.” 

With InvoiceCloud, innovating online payments resulted in a surge of online adoption for James City County. The attention paid to improving the customer experience had significant, positive ramifications for the organization and drove impactful results. 

Innovative payments increased customer satisfaction 

James City County is a perfect example of the benefits that come from a convenient, well-designed online payment platform. Once the county opted for InvoiceCloud’s superior customer experience, customer satisfaction and e-adoption skyrocketed, effectively slashing costs and saving valuable time. 

To see the full results of this successful implementation, download the full case study below.