Companies with old-fashioned utility software struggle to keep up with customer bill-pay inquiries and mail-in checks in 2020 and 2021, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Effects of the pandemic have caused nearly all consumers to want online billing as their primary payment method. According to a 2020 report by Stats GmbH & Co. KG, “Nearly 50% of global shoppers were using digital payments more than before the pandemic, and the majority plan continues doing so after the virus is contained”. The pandemic may have pushed this shift to online payment, but it’s not stopping anytime soon.
What Do Utility Companies Need?
Although we’re into 2022, many companies feel overwhelmed with this digital transformation because their Independent Software Company (ISV) does not offer the technology to efficiently serve their customers on one platform. They become vulnerable without providing payment solutions that avoid hacker fraud, prevent returned check fees, or deliver quicker funding. Dusty utility software technology sufficed BEFORE the pandemic, but not anymore. Websites forced the customer to log in to see their account usage in one system but pay by logging in to another that supports online payment. Even worse, SOME electric, water, and even phone companies only allowed the utility invoice to get satisfied by mailing in or going into the office with a paper check.
Software vendors bringing products to the industries like utility companies, municipalities, medical offices, and more help the consumer base with cutting-edge financial tools. These solutions integrate seamlessly with their API to offer bill payment using credit card and ACH methods within the same internet-based platform. Utility businesses need options from their software vendors to help them offer their customers more ways to:
- Pay their bills,
- Check account transactions and balances,
- Process their payments through other avenues such as within the online hosted payment portal, on mobile, with IVR, or through invoices paid by SMS and email.
Every ISV must embrace the digital trends coming in 2021 and beyond to help their utility, medical, and municipality customers grow sustainably.
Common iCG Product Offerings
Some ISVs offer online payments, but not the modern payment tech that allows their partners to pass on an easy, seamless experience to their utility customers. Offering a credit-card-only pay option limits their clients’ ability to save on merchant fees. With the iCG collaboration, an ISV can find a payment gateway partner to integrate into their current offerings for clients that include billing tools such as:
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
- Mobile Processing
- Text Invoicing
- Email Invoicing
- Recurring Bill Pay
Automated IVR Technology
IVR options help merchants reduce the time spent on the phone. This technology can do more than just answer billing questions. Adding revolutionary IVR payment solutions also helps collect payments and provide data within the virtual terminal in one seamlessly secure integrated platform.
Organized, efficient financial technology helps lessen the labor burden in the billing and invoicing departments. This seamless software integration helps merchants utilize the ACH or credit card payment method on file to pay.
By utilizing this added value payment solution, the system can also manage several other customer FAQs like:
- Check the status with detailed insight into their account with the company: albeit the payment balance
- Have insight into real-time data
- Reduce costs and unnecessary fees
- Hear upcoming payment due date
- Listen to the previous statement details
- Inquire about the hours of operation of the business
- Understand the current protocols for COVID-19 prefaced in the introduction of the call
Account and Check Verification for Safer Payment Collection
Quite possibly, the most significant innovation ISVs can offer utilities, medical offices, and municipalities is the security of a robust preventative evaluation of the payments at the time of the transaction. As a Preferred Partner with Nacha, iCG proves that their ACH solutions offer a cost-efficient bill payment option.
The iCG check verification services are used by municipality software organizations, medical office applications, and utility software companies. These services offer:
- Account validation,
- Bank account verification,
- Real-time account balance verification, and more.
These services help merchants process payments without the extra effort to chase down NSF (non-sufficient funds) attempts. Secure ISV partner relationships lessen the need to follow up days later after recognizing that the customer made innocent typing errors that led to a failed payment status. The services guard merchant business against everyday fraudulent activities.
Benefits of the iCG Partnership
While developing relationships, we help our partners gain new business by leading with tech instead of focusing on cost. We provide seamless technological hooks into the merchants’ needs, giving them the quality tech they pass on to their customers.
Our APIs and plugins allow seamless integration with your current customer management systems, giving you more control over your business. We offer efficient and secure methods for accepting ACH and credit card payments by reducing PCI scope and redirecting sensitive data through our secure gateway with our hosted payment portal solutions. Furthermore, your customer data is always safe with built-in security features such as tokenization and end-to-end encryption.
When your customers can use their phone, computer, or any internet-enabled device to take care of their payment needs, they pay invoices more efficiently. These solutions help the utility customers pay their bills, and companies carry out transactions faster.
Why Your Business Needs a Partnership?
The biggest reasons why every ISV needs to offer these integrated payment solutions to all their customers:
- Ease of use
- Convenience
- Multiple payment options
- Less customer service calls
- Less mail to sort through for billing
- Less chasing around customers for NSF attempts or non-payment
- More automation in the process means fewer man-hours required
The positive feedback, additional service offerings, and competitive rates allow ISVs to build long-term loyal customers. Most importantly, we arm our partners to help their customers with an all-in-one solution approach they can incorporate into their software applications.
Why Choose iCheckGateway.com?
We can support our partners to generate additional revenues and customize our services depending on the merchant’s individual or software integration needs. We also expand their merchant processing with additional revenue channels by adding ACH, IVR, and SMS payment options for their customers.
We help ISVs bundle our technology with their existing utility software services and product offerings. We enhance your value proposition with complementary technologies to help you generate more profit. We ensure that secure financial data transfer and protect consumers and merchants with front-end account authentication. ISVs that partner with iCheckGateway.com offer a broader range of technologies to their customers, which means fewer customer service calls and a more loyal, happy customer. Become a partner today!
Date Originally Published: February 2, 2021
Date Updated: August 1, 2022