The intersection where internal processes meet payments can prove to be an organizational boon or a challenging roadblock – and it all depends on your payment capabilities.

At its most high functioning, an organization’s payment processing capabilities can offer customers an array of streamlined, self-service options for paying their bills. These options reduce workloads for your team, strengthen internal efficiencies, save money, and improve collections across the board.

But when those processes are outdated? The manual workload tends to burden the organization’s staff, increase costs, and disrupt internal efficiencies. Ultimately, this all adds up to collections being negatively impacted.

Lockhart Power Company, a public utility servicing the Upstate of South Carolina, was faced with that very challenge. While Lockhart Power was used to meeting their customer’s utility needs by providing reliable and cost-effective services, their insufficient payment offerings were proving to be a major roadblock for their internal efficiency.

To save valuable time, money, and keep organizational functions running smoothly, Lockhart Power was searching for a cutting-edge Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) solution. After implementing Invoice Cloud, Lockhart Power was able to modernize their payment processing and offer innovative payment options, all while providing the highest level of data security.

The challenges of limited payment options

Limited payment offerings impact more than how your organization makes collections. When payment processing capabilities are restricted to difficult to use, manual options, there tends to be lower customer engagement. This means payers are less likely to opt for self-service options – if they’re even offered – and the manual work falls on your staff, misdirecting their focus and running up organizational costs.

With staff workloads and collection issues mounting, Lockhart Power needed an online payment platform to streamline their collection processes. Before choosing Invoice Cloud as its new online payment platform, Lockhart Power was struggling with several challenges, including:

• Limited payment options causing a poor user experience
• Lack of self-service functionality increasing staff workload
• Absence of an e-payment option leading to slower payments
• Inability to protect sensitive payment information

Lockhart Power’s antiquated payment processing capabilities were creating negative trends, both internally and externally. From within the organization, a lack of self-service options meant staff workloads had become overwhelming. Lack of online payment options were slowing down collections, therefore disrupting internal efficiency and creating a negative customer experience. More challenging still, the security measures in place were unable to properly protect sensitive payment information, opening the organization up to a slew of complicated payment data issues.

To course correct, the organization would need to implement a solution that could ratify their lack of payment options and offer a high standard of data security. Only then could Lockhart Power improve internal efficiencies and positively impact collections.

Driving e-adoption with enhanced payment capabilities

To overcome their current business obstacles, Lockhart Power needed an EBPP solution that could innovate their payment processing and expand their payment offerings. They chose Invoice Cloud as it provided everything they needed to:

• Increase self-service adoption with omni-channel payment options
• Enable a better user experience to drive more digital payments
• Increase e-adoption for more efficient collections
• Protect sensitive payer data

With Invoice Cloud’s cutting-edge solution, Lockhart Power was able to provide self-service, omni-channel options that were never previously available. The expansion of their payment offerings saw customer engagement spike to an all-time high, resulting in a 182% uptick in e-payment adoption. That increase in self-service adoption resulted in more efficient collections and reduced costly, time-consuming manual work for the staff – all while providing PCI Level 1 security to protect payer data.

Increased self-service and customer satisfaction rates

Lockhart Power is a great example of how opting for an innovative, omni-channel payment solution can result in higher levels of e-adoption and more efficient, cost-effective internal processes.

To read the full results of Lockhart Power’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.