Providers who want ePayment programs to succeed offer free marketing programs to Financial Institutions

Taking advantage of the marketing tools available helps financial institutions sell services to billers and shape consumer behavior

Providers of electronic payments want ePayment programs to succeed because it’s truly a win-win for everyone when customers pay bills electronically. Providers receive new revenue from each transaction processed; financial institutions complement their lock box offering with a broader service portfolio for their customers; billers reduce paper processing costs with fewer unpostable payments; and their customers have options to pay their bills faster and more securely than mailing a check. It even helps the environment. For these reasons, ePayment providers like ChoicePay promote use of their sales and marketing tools as a value-add that financial institutions can use to educate commercial customers about offering ePayments as an option for their customers to pay bills.

ChoicePay provides a full-service, full-suite solution for resellers of ePayment products and also supports direct billers’ ePayment needs. After spending 12 years in the payments business, we understand that adoption requires consistent messaging about the benefits and convenience you can enjoy by paying electronically. For financial institutions and resellers of our services, ChoicePay supplies training materials and tools that showcase how to sell our services to billers. To support adoption of the new ePayment services offered, ChoicePay also includes tools for helping the biller promote ePayment services to their customers.

Supporting the Sales Process
When ChoicePay launched our white-labeled ChoicePay Biller Services offerings with the nation’s largest independent provider of remittance processing solutions, we provided the sales team with product information, training materials, and sophisticated interactive demonstrations for use at tradeshows. We were happy to share all of the industry information available to help our client build their sales collateral and support their training initiative. The suite of marketing materials and strategies outlined not only information about the features of each service available, but also included historical data, payment industry trends, how to talk to billers about meeting the consumer demand for ePayments, and why it was so important to offer ePayments to remain competitive. We also provided extensive training on our biller provisioning tool used by resellers to set up new clients in the ChoicePay system, ChoicePay® RPMTM (Rapid Provisioning Module).

Biller Marketing Programs
Once a reseller partner sets up a new biller using the Rapid Provisioning Module, our next step is to help them communicate the new ePayment options to their customers. We provide a free, complete marketing guide that includes:

• Examples of statement and website messaging about how to pay online and/or over the phone
• Professionally designed white-label templates of fliers, statement stuffers and counter signage
• A style guide and several ChoicePay logos for billers who use ChoicePay-branded products

The ChoicePay Marketing Guide recommends that billers build employee incentive programs to achieve buy-in of the new service. The guide also provides suggestions on how to launch customer sweepstakes and encourages billers to build a 6- to 12-month strategic marketing plan to reinforce all customer messaging.

Internal Incentive Programs Increase Adoption and Usage
ChoicePay has been working with one of our largest direct biller customers for the last two years to increase adoption of ePayments far beyond the industry standard of 5% when a consumer fee is charged for the transaction. Using CSR incentive programs, this biller has realized a consistent rise in adoption – as high as 15% in some periods – by simply having CSRs recommend that callers pay electronically over the phone or online and tracking their successes. When the customer makes an ePayment, the recommending CSR is entered into a contest to win gift cards and participate in call center parties when goals are reached. By consistently rewarding contact center reps, transactions have steadily increased, resulting in steady adoption and savings for this biller.

ChoicePay is one example of a provider that has built a simple-to-use marketing program for their direct billers who want to promote ePayments to their customers. Other types of companies and organizations that benefit from the use of electronic payments also offer professional programs and case studies of best practices in marketing. Credit card issuers such as VISA® and MasterCard® provide downloadable templates to their customers who want to encourage bill payment using a branded credit card. The electronic payments organization, NACHA, makes available a comprehensive booklet entitled “Marketing Electronic Billing and Payment to Consumers,” available for purchase on their website, www.nacha.org. The booklet lists the four critical elements of a successful EBPP marketing plan, case studies and examples of successful advertising campaigns for everything from radio campaigns to bill and remittance envelope messaging to ideas for statement inserts, similar to the ChoicePay marketing program.

EBPP and Green Initiatives – A Natural Fit
Electronic bill payment and presentment is a natural fit for environmentally-conscious “go green” initiatives. By electing to stop receiving paper statements and transitioning to paying bills online, customers are automatically reducing the production of paper and resulting destruction of trees, reducing toxic gases in the environment, and saving energy on bill delivery by mail.

ChoicePay has introduced the “Give us the Green Light” paperless billing campaign to our billers as a way to help them transition customers from paper to electronic bill presentment and payment. Customers can elect to receive email reminders when their bill is due, email notifications when the bill is ready to view on the biller’s website and email presentment of their statement and summary balance. It’s an easy process for the customer:  go to the website, click on a “pay online now” button, enter payment information, click to be remembered next time, click on the “Give us the Green Light” option to turn off paper billing and agree to receive an email when their bill is ready to view and pay online. ChoicePay provides online camera-ready artwork with the “Give Us the Green Light” messaging and photography so billers can download the template, insert their logo and print the statement stuffers and fliers.

As customer demand for electronic payment options continues to rise, billers will turn to their financial institutions, remittance processors and lockbox providers for ePayment products they can make available to their customers. Getting billers on board to offer ePayments should be a seamless process with a quick implementation time so that billers of any size can offer ePayment convenience. ChoicePay makes this possible with our Rapid Provisioning Module application and suite of Biller Services. Once the biller is on board, the financial institution can offer added value by helping them understand the benefits of ePayments to both their business and to their customer.

Financial institutions don’t need to reinvent the wheel because ChoicePay knows and shares the compelling reasons why customers should pay online, over the phone and at self-service electronic payment locations. Professional marketing ideas and tools are only a click away and, best of all, they are free for our partners and their clients!