Here’s How Automated Payment Reminders Can Increase Collection Rates

Late payments have become an increasing concern for businesses across the world. Incorporating automated SMS payment reminders into customer communications is a simple solution that reminds customers to pay.

Prior to COVID-19, one in five businesses reported that late payments were a greater challenge than they were the previous year. Six out of nine sectors, including banking and finance, said it was a growing issue, with 24% of their payments arriving after the due date.

In 2020 the creditors’ nightmare continues while late payments soar, revealing extent of coronavirus pain on companies worldwide. The impact of late payments can be devastating causing cash-flow issues that lead to business shutdown or administrative burdens and lost time.

Many companies are having to be “innovative” about the way they try to collect payments. Tactics to successfully collect payments can include:

• changing the methods a company uses to pursue unpaid invoices
• altering payment channels
• offering customers payment plans

For instance, we found that mobile payments via Rich Media Messaging is more effective than email or phone calls, with engagement rates of over 68%.

VoiceSage’s debt collection solutions and automated payment reminders help improve customer engagement, cash management, and invoice collection.

How do automated payment reminders work?

Automated payment reminders make the payment process smoother by cutting down on routine tasks for agents and making it easier for customers to pay.

Collection agents tasked with trying to call customers to collect past-due amount suffer a long and tedious process. By the time, an agent can collect the payment, they’ve lost hours of valuable time. Research from Intuit QuickBooks indicates that UK firms waste about 56.4 million hours pursuing overdue payments each year.

With automated payment reminders, financial brands can schedule payment reminders to be sent to a customer’s mobile phone via SMS, email, and WhatsApp for Business at set intervals, such as 30 days before and then two days before a loan payment is due. If the payment isn’t made, agents can send missed-payment reminders at set intervals, too.

Automated messages can include a link so customers can click and be taken to a secure URL, a fully personalized web page that allows users to quickly make their payment without signing in into apps or websites.

How do automated payment reminders benefit users?

Automated payment reminders benefit users by simplifying the payment process.

Incorporating automated payment reminders can make the customer’s experience better by:

• Reaching them through their preferred communications channel. A survey of UK consumers on debt collection communications, conducted by FICO, found that they would rather receive late payment reminders via text than by traditional mail or email. Text was the preference for 42% of respondents, email was the choice for 23%, and traditional mail was the choice of only 14%.
• Linking them to their preferred payment method. VoiceSage easily integrates to any payment provider, making the debt repayment process secure and fast.
• Making payments frictionless. The goal of frictionless payments is to remove or minimize the barriers to pay. By sending the payment reminder via Rich Media Messaging to the customer’s mobile phone, you allow the customer to self-serve at his own convenient time without interrupting his customer journey.
• Providing payment security. While UK consumers prefer to make payments online, feeling that their payment information is secure is key to getting them through the payment process. That’s why VoiceSage is fully compliant in its PCI DSS certification.

These should be the goals for all financial institutions looking to improve their customers’ payment experience.

How do automated payment reminders benefit financial institutions?

Automated payment reminders benefit financial institutions by lowering costs and increasing payment rates and customer satisfaction.

VoiceSage specializes in providing debt collection solutions that help businesses collect payments faster. On average, VoiceSage customers who used automated payment reminders were able to:

• Achieve up to 20% ROI within the first year
• Increase payment rates by up to 50%
• Reduce inbound calls to agents by 30%

An example of a financial institution that uses our automated debt collection solution to improve their outcomes is Vanquis Bank, a leading UK-based credit card company. Vanquis was using diallers and live agents to chase customer payments, but it was proving labour-intensive. Vanquis Bank’s goal was to boost collections through automated voice, text, and Rich Media Messaging reminders. By choosing VoiceSage solutions, Vanquis was able to move toward an optimised contact approach that understood customers wanted to avoid collection calls, couldn’t afford to have lengthy conversations, and didn’t want to be interrupted at inconvenient times.

Compared with the dialler used traditionally for outbound collection calls, VoiceSage’s voice and SMS automated payment reminders have:

• Delivered a higher rate of conversions of ‘promises to pay’
• Required 60% fewer agent resources because of automatically generated messages
• Allowed contact center operatives to be redeployed to support customers in other areas

Make payments frictionless and secure with VoiceSage

While customers want as few payment barriers as possible, or frictionless payments, to make their payment process easier, they don’t want to sacrifice their data security for the sake of convenience.

VoiceSage integrates securely with the payment provider of your choice. Because of our easy integrations, customers can enter their credit card details, which are then tokenized, meaning the sensitive data is replaced with randomly generated numbers called a token, and stored by the respective payment provider. This prevents customers’ sensitive information from being accessed in a digital breach but lets them quickly make future payments without reentering credit card information.

VoiceSage’s automated payment reminder services makes it easy for users to increase their payment rate and improve ROI.

Speak to our team to learn more about our collection solutions.