How Online Payments Can Support a Personalized Client Experience

A client-centric business thrives on offering a personal touch to their services. Many professionals pride themselves on building a series of client relationships that fosters challenging work and repeat business for years to come. So, when the idea of a billing solution that doesn’t require face-to-face interaction to function is brought up, there can understandably be some hesitation to jump on the bandwagon.

However, the proliferation of new technologies doesn’t always result in a more isolated society. In fact, in many ways, digital technologies can lend themselves superbly to a client-centric business.

Here, we’ll show you how online payment solutions can help you provide a more personalized client experience.

By making it easy for them to pay your bill

When was the last time you paid your monthly utility bills with a paper check? If you’re anything like most modern adults, it may have been several years ago. Paperless billing has become increasingly popular over the last decade, with a recent study showing as much as 79 percent of consumers switching to a paperless billing system. Thanks to paperless billing, today’s consumers can pay their bills online using their cards, or an electronic payment through their bank accounts.

A big driving force behind this is the convenience electronic billing offers. Consider for a moment how easy it is to purchase a product today. Thanks to immensely popular services like Amazon or InstaCart, modern consumers can purchase nearly anything they want with a few simple clicks of a button, often from a device that is easily accessed from their purse or pocket. More and more consumers have become accustomed to this convenience and are looking for professional services to offer the same level of convenience.

By offering your clients the ability to pay your invoices online, you can easily showcase your firm as one who respects their client’s time and wants to make their project as painless as possible. When the next milestone is reached and the next payment is due, you can use an online payment solution to quickly send an invoice to your client’s inbox, which they can pay immediately (as opposed to the lengthy process of mailing and cashing a check to meet the due date). The more you can foster a frictionless experience with your clients, the more inclined they’ll be to repeat business with you, and recommend your business to others.

By allowing them to automate their payments

Your clients are busy people, with mounting to-do lists and weeks packed with personal and professional tasks to be accomplished. Because of this, the prospect of paying their architect or designer their bill on time can sometimes slip through the cracks (as many in the profession are unfortunately all too familiar with).

One of the biggest draws for clients to pay their bills online is the ability to set their bills on an automated recurring schedule. All they often have to do is provide their payment data to the service provider. The provider will then automatically charge the client whenever their bill is due. This “set it and forget it” method of bill paying has become increasingly popular in recent years, both with personal bills and professional services alike. For example, a recent study amongst clients of legal professionals showed that 73 percent of clients wanted to take advantage of a payment plan. What better way to accomplish this than using a payment plan that operates automatically?

Each client you work with has a unique project to be accomplished, with its own unique work schedule and milestones to hit. As such, the rate in which you bill them could vary wildly from client to client. The best recurring billing systems allow you to customize your client’s billing schedule to fit their individual needs. One client could be billed on a weekly basis, while another might be billed up front at the beginning of each month. Others still could have an overarching project budget that could be billed consistently throughout the year until the limit is reached.

Armed with the right online payment solution, you could meet your clients halfway and design a payment plan catered specifically to their needs.

By enabling more communication touchpoints with your clients

In our ever connected world, digital technology has become a huge part of how we communicate with each other. Mobile phone technology has helped cement the popularity of more text-based communication, via text messaging, as well as DMs through social media networks.

More importantly, today’s consumers have come to largely prefer this method of communication amongst each other, so much so that they prefer to do so with businesses as well. Research showed that as much as 78 percent of customers wished they could have a text conversation with a business. This is especially true when it comes to important matters like bills.

With online payments, you could easily give your clients the communications they want in the medium they want. Send them a digital invoice via email, that they can pay and keep track of through their inbox.

Going back to the point of automation, you can also take advantage of email technologies like automated messages, where your clients will automatically receive an email letting them know their bill is ready to be paid, or that a bill is coming soon. In fact, this can free you up to speak to the clients who still prefer voice communications, and give back more time that you would’ve spent on crafting and delivering invoices in the first place.

As our world becomes increasingly digital, it can often seem like we’re losing the personal touch traditional business would offer. However, with new technology, you can make your client interactions easier and more accommodating, which in turn will increase your client’s satisfaction with your services. And your happiest clients are the ones who will want to establish life-long relationships with your business.

Learn more about how ClientPay can support your business. Schedule a demo today!