February 15, 2013 •Brian Watson
Online billing and payment technology is improving quickly.
The average billing website of today is more feature rich, easier to use and much better at collecting and processing customer payments than even the top options available a few years ago.
So it stands to reason that it should be getting harder and harder to provide customers with EBPP platforms that they actively dislike.
Should being the operative word, since there are still plenty of really, really bad portals out there.
How do the offending billers do it? Basically by taking the path of least resistance: disregarding new technology, using clunky, hard-to-manage payment tools, pretty much ignoring the user experience altogether - that kind of stuff.
Learn from their mistakes. I’ve collected 14 seriously clumsy EBPP techniques into a what-not-to-do guide that should help you avoid some of the common pitfalls of bad online billing and payment. So without further ado, let’s get on to the list.
Full disclosure: heavy sarcasm ahead.
1). Make the Registration Process Long.
Your customers want a simple sign-up that allows them to quickly view their bill and make a payment. But you should make sure that you have every piece of indentifying information about them that you can think of - up-front, before they even access your site.
Sure, all you really need is the customer’s account number, a secondary piece of authentication data, login information and acceptance of your terms and conditions.
But ask for much more than that. Include forms for stuff like funding sources, notification preferences, billing options and profile information. Don’t worry, they’ll gladly comply. After all, patience is a virtue.
2). Don’t Offer Payment without Enrollment
Let’s face it: each of your customers has exactly the same online billing and payment needs. So there’s no reason to give them the option to make a guest payment without enrolling as a full user.
Even though guest payment is fast, simple and appeals strongly to transactional and convenience-based consumers, you should probably just force everyone into the same one-size-fits-all payment system. It’s a lot easier that way.
3). Ignore Mobile Users Entirely.
Smartphones and tablets are surely a flash in the pan. Never mind that more Adult Americans use a mobile device than use a computer. Or that 47% of all our daily online/offline media interactions now occurs on a smartphone or tablet.
Mobile users can always just access the desktop-specific version of your online billing and payment website on their phone. Sure it might load slowly/not at all. Or require a ton of scrolling. Or make navigation near-impossible by cutting-off key on-screen elements.
And with finger-unfriendly buttons and forms, good luck to users that actually want to - you know - use the site.
But adversity builds character. So stress that benefit to the mobile billing crowd. At least until the fad dies down, that is.
4). Botch the Delivery System
One of the best ways to hamstring the effectiveness of your EBPP platform is by making sure that your customers never truly know for certain when they have a new statement available.
On the other hand, it’s a sure-fire way to increase traffic because they’ll have to come back all the time to double-check. Can you say "hello banner ad revenue"? Cha-ching!
So by all means, don’t send an email as the last part of registration to ensure you’ve collected the right address – and that it doesn’t go directly into a spam filter.
You also probably don’t want to give customers the choice to personalize their delivery medium with options like IVR phone or SMS text messaging. Or enable them to set the type of portal actions for which they’ll receive a notification.
Sure some might like to be pinged when a new statement becomes available but couldn't give a flip about when a new customer service message is posted or payment processed. Others probably want the whole thing. But it’s best to go one-size-fits-all. It saves users' mental energy for important choices – like sandwich toppings.
5). Make Navigation as Confusing as Possible.
User experience is overrated. People are naturally curious - and even though they might just want to logon, view their bill and make a payment – at the end of the day, they’ll surely enjoy having a look around your entire EBPP portal to make that happen.
So there’s no need to keep navigation simple, clear and efficient. Or present customers with payment information and tools on the first page they view after logon. Most of them will probably be able to figure it out before frustration drives them away. Probably.
6). Skimp on the Support Options.
Customers are going to have billing and payment questions. A trackable online messaging tool is a great way to securely communicate with users and efficiently handle issues without the high cost of support calls to customer service.
Then again, you could always wait them out instead. And they'll likely have a payment due soon – so time is on your side.
7). Forget the Frequently Asked Questions.
Don’t worry about providing your EBPP users with a comprehensive, searchable FAQ to help troubleshoot questions and issues either. They’ll eventually figure it out on their own. And that’s a lot more rewarding.
8). Make Your Online Statements Extra Confusing
People don’t generally want to know what exactly it is they’re being charged for. They’re very accommodating that way.
So why sweat something like giving customers the tools to view a digital copy of their statement that’s identical to the offline, paper version they’re accustomed to and understand? That’s a waste of resources.
Just slap a balance due on your EBPP homepage, fire off an email when a payment is due and – bam – wait for the revenue to roll right in. Or provide customers with a generic billing summary that’s not only light on transaction data, but also has little connection to the statement they receive offline. Either way works from a user confusion standpoint.
9). Don’t Bother with Automatic Payment/Future-Dated Payments.
Instead, make sure your users have to logon and go through the entire payment process for each transaction – no matter how regular and predictable it might be.
And don’t even think about giving your online billing and payment users the ability to setup and manage payment plans. Some financial tools are clearly meant to be offline-only.
10). Lose the Saveable Payment Profiles.
Giving customers the ability to save bank account and debit/credit card payment information as funding sources simplifies the bill payment process and saves users a ton of time.
On the other hand, forcing users to input funding details each time they need to make a payment lets them practice their typing - a most valuable skill.
11). Keep Users in the Dark About Portal Security.
Forrest Research reports that 39% of U.S. online consumers are worried about sharing personal information in order to access a website. And 49% expressed security and privacy concerns when purchasing products online.
Compelling – until you do the math and realize neither group is even over 50%. That’s got to be small enough to justify ignoring those worrywarts altogether, right?
You can do that by refusing to post your EBPP security information on all pages (especially those that come before login) or by launching the site in a new window instead of as a frame within your website.
And be sure to brand your site lightly. That’s a great way to scare off users with security concerns.
12). Don’t Offer Consolidated Accounts.
Customers love managing the usernames and passwords of all the accounts they have with your organization.
So don’t think about letting them access all of them under one profile. Because who isn’t thrilled when they have to log into one portal to pay the hospital portion of their bill, then log into another to pay a medical group? Or have to go to separate sites to view a bank statement and pay a car loan?
I mean, variety is the spice of life, right?
And it’s even better when there are multiple accounts in the same household. Remembering login info for a family of six can be a blast. It’s like a memory game! Only really, really frustrating.
13). Or Single Sign-In.
And if you do use multiple portals, be sure not to link them all together through a single sign-in entry system.
People hate that. All of that convenience and ease of access; who needs it?
Instead, give your users a new sign-in screen every time they want to click through to a different account management tool. And enough username/password combinations to comfortably fill a sheet of college-ruled notebook paper.
14). Keep It Static.
What works today will surely be more than adequate 5 years down the road. After all, iteration is for other businesses - the ones that don’t already have a great product.
Make sure that you keep things stale by not performing regular updates to your EBPP feature set and user interface as new technology emerges.
That’s pretty much what not to do if you want an engaging, user-friendly eBilling platform. But there’s a lot more that goes into best-practice than just avoiding the stuff you shouldn’t do. To learn more about the strategies that drive patient adoption and use, download out our free online billing and payment whitepaper, The New Rules of Patient EBPP.
Do you have any other what-not-to-do eBilling rules to add to our list? Be sure to add your two cents in the comments section.