Companies interested in cutting costs, improving cash flow and strengthening customer relationships need to take a hard look at their bill presentment solutions. Sandwiched between the customer transaction and payment, the step of presenting a bill has a major but often overlooked impact on everything from call center volume and on-time payments to customer loyalty and revenue growth.
When mailing paper statements was the only bill presentment option, companies treated this step as necessary but routine. Billers can’t afford to take that approach anymore.
Cloud and digital innovations are transforming bill presentment, raising customer expectations for greater choice, convenience, ease of use, personalization, and seamless experiences. What they increasingly want are digital and mobile options.
Outdated legacy bill presentment solutions can’t leverage today’s digital channels or manage the complexity of providing customization and other customer preferences. It takes robust, cloud-based bill presentment solutions that give billers the enterprise control for managing and automating the complicated process and the capabilities to deliver satisfying digital and print and mail customer experiences and remove payment friction.
A streamlined, customer-centric presentment process, in turn, drives major operational benefits. With electronic bill presentment and payments, businesses can lower processing costs per bill to $2.78 and reduce processing time to just 3.1 days, according to March 2025 research by PYMNTS.
CX requirements for bill presentment
Customizing bill presentment experiences increases customer engagement, goodwill and propensity to pay, which is increasingly important in an economy that’s forcing more U.S. households to choose which bills to pay each month. Now, 65% of U.S. households live paycheck to paycheck, and 1 in 3 of those households resorted to skipping or making partial bill payments in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to PYMNTS research.
Leveraging modern bill presentment solutions, companies can provide the key elements of exceptional customer experiences.
Choice. Consumers want to decide how they receive their bills, which means companies need to offer multiple delivery channel options. ACI Speedpay Pulse research for the first half of 2024 found the majority preferred digital or a combination of digital and print and mail:
- 59%–electronic billing statements
- 16%–paper statements
- 25%–both paper and digital statements
Consumers also lean heavily toward electronic delivery for billing notifications, with more than 75% preferring email, text message, and mobile app alerts, according to ACI Speedpay Pulse.
Convenience. Customers want to control access to their bills, choosing when and where they have time (and money) to address them. For many, that means using electronic self-service options: 43% of consumers want to view billing statements online, according to 2023 research by PYMNTS and Mastercard.
Another expedient feature valued by many consumers: Automating recurring payments, using a variety of methods including credit cards, ACH, and digital wallets such as ApplePay. More than half, or 54%, of U.S. borrowers preferred PayPal as an option for loan repayments in 2024, up 26% from 2021, according to PayNearMe research.
Ease of use. The call to action inherent in bill presentment—make a payment–underperforms when charges, payment information and other aspects of the billing statement are confusing. According to Cedar’s 2024 Healthcare Financial Experience Study,
- 31% of consumers are confused by their medical bills and related health insurance benefits.
- 40% won’t pay their bill if they can’t understand their coverage or how to pay the bill.
- 28% delayed paying a medical bill because they were confused.
In addition, bill confusion drives up call-center costs. Billing-related calls made up 25% to 50% of total annual inbound call volume for companies, according to 2024 CSG research.
Personalization
Customers respond favorably when companies treat them as individuals as opposed to anonymous accounts. Personalized messages, offers and data-driven graphics as well as other account details, instructions and information specific to them and written in plain language can boost engagement and outcomes.
One collection firm’s response rate quadrupled when it added the client’s name to text messages, which helped consumers distinguish the sender as a legitimate business versus spam.
Seamless experiences
Customers want every company touchpoint connected and coordinated, with easy transitions between them. Yet 6 in 10 U.S. consumers have encountered major roadblocks in accessing and then paying their bills digitally, according to the Invoice Cloud’s State of Online Payments report from December 2023.
Bill presentment solutions for better CX
The most powerful and effective bill presentment solutions are integrated into one or both:
- Cloud omnichannel customer communications management (CCM) platforms for composing, updating, tracking, archiving and reporting on billing statements, notifications and other customer communications and providing digital and print/mail presentment of billing statements and other communications.
- Electronic bill presentment and payments (EBPP) systems that combine online bill presentment with contactless IVR and digital payments.
A few CCM platform providers also provide digital and print/mail production and delivery, ensuring another tight link that simplifies management and smooths the customer experience.
These integrations enable seamless customer connections and experiences from developing, presenting and then paying bills. For mailed paper statements, billers can make multiple payment options clear and prominent, including individualized QR codes that customers scan to go directly to their account online—without needing any other log-in information. Emails and text messages notifying customers of their new bill can include secure links for presenting the statements in online payment portals, along with other account information.
Enabling billers to improve CX
Bill presentment solutions integrated with CCM let companies cater to each customer’s preferences for receiving bills and other financial communications. Importantly, they also let billers easily update their communications templates to ensure they are using bill design best-practices to improve satisfaction and on-time payments.
CX-centered EBPP solutions simplify self-service account management and payments, accepting a variety of payment methods including ACH, debit/credit cards, PayPal and Google and Apple digital wallets. They allow customers to make one-time payments and automate recurring payments. Some also make it possible for customers to set up payment plans.
Digital transformation drives CX
In a self-reinforcing synergy, the move to cloud, digital and automated CCM, bill presentment and payment technologies strengthens a company’s ability to deliver the experiences customers want and respond to. In fact, digital transformation is the great enabler of excellent CX.
The digital transformation and automation possible with top omnichannel CCM + presentment platforms also deliver important cost and operating improvements. Online bill presentment and payments reduce collection cycle time, billing expenses and days outstanding and improve cash flow. With a CCM system also providing digital and print distribution, companies can automate progressive presentment: If a text or email bounces or remains unopened for a pre-set number of days, the system will automatically present the bill by printing and mailing it to the customer. Billers also can automate the handling of returned mail.
As the critical juncture between developing a bill and receiving payment, bill presentment is a strategic opportunity to engage, satisfy and prompt payments. Seizing the opportunity means meeting high customer expectations with the latest bill presentment solutions.
