At RECONNECT, Madhavi Makkapati, Product Strategy Director at Oracle, spoke about how PeopleSoft eBill Payment gives customers the convenience of paying bills online 24/7.

Drivers for Using eBill Payment

Makkapati explained that some of the complex challenges that customers are facing include improving profitability, improving customer loyalty, and deepening relationships through billings.

PeopleSoft customers are looking for automated customer invoice processes with automated bill presentment and payment processing. They are looking to manage invoicing costs by delivering bills in an electronic format and improve customer retention by delivering high touch customer service.

PeopleSoft customers are also looking to maximize customers benefits, which can be achieved through actions like:

• Minimizing customer inquiries by providing 24/7 online customer support
• Streamlining customer communication through electronic channels and web collaboration
• Enabling self-service account management through an online portal

PeopleSoft customers are also looking to streamline payment processing and reducing costs. This can be achieved by improving cash flow through self-service payment capabilities, speeding up payment processing by enabling online credit card and debit payments, and supporting real-time payment confirmation and authorization for credit cards through integrating with third-party payment processing vendors.

PeopleSoft eBill Payment Overview

PeopleSoft eBill Payment provides self-service customer invoicing, which provides customers with the ability to view invoices, manage their profile, pay invoices, and submit invoice inquiries. When viewing invoices, the customer is able to see all current and past invoices and overdue balances. They can manage their credit card information, address, and payment preferences with profile management capabilities. Customers can also pay via credit card, direct debit, or eCheck and view and pay entire statement when paying invoices. Finally, they can dispute management and view customer inquiries about invoices.

PeopleSoft Fluid eBill Payment increases productivity through simplified user interaction. By utilizing this program, customers are able to collect bills faster, reduce operational overhead, and expand customer access. Examples of the functionality of the program are seen when businesses pay for goods and services, students and faculty pay for housing, and faculty pays for services.

You can also improve Self Service Administration through the Self Service Customer Hierarchy. This provides exposure to the corporate customer and its subsidiaries and allows viewing and reporting against customer relationships. It enables users to make quick decisions, manage collection activities effectively, and use the eBill payment broker model. Each node has a set of related actions that include account balance, statements, invoices, and payment cart.

There are also some key features and key benefits to payment plans. Payment plans improve customer satisfaction, increase cash inflow, and reduce costs. One key feature of payment plans is that it allows customers’ customers to make payments in installments.

Within eBill Payment, there are many benefits to both the biller and the customer.

Benefits to the biller include:

• Collecting bills faster
• Lowered customer service costs
• Enhanced value-added customer service
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Reduced billing disputes and questions

Benefits to the customer include:

• Access and convenience
• Cost savings on checks and postage
• No late fees due to lost mail or delayed mail time
• Empowered with self-service tools

eBill Payment Customer Use Cases

UC Berkeley

UC Berkeley uses PeopleSoft eBill Payment for student and faculty housing. There are 500 student and faculty users, and they process 1,000 invoices per month.  PeopleSoft eBill Payment allows them to avoid a lot of customizations, eliminate manual updates in AR, and get payments faster.

InterContinental Hotels Group

InterContinental Hotels Group is a hotel chain with over 4,500 hotels in more than 100 countries worldwide. By using PeopleSoft eBill Payment, they have reduced the cost of collections via communications with emails, reduced mailing costs with online statement and invoices, and standardized invoice layout globally.

MERS

MERS provides pension management services to more than 600 municipalities that support 64,000 members across Michigan. They have realized the benefits of eBill Payment through:

• An increased customer adoption rate of 85 percent
• Manual processes reduced by 75 percent
• A 90 percent staff productivity increase
• Marked improvement in customer satisfaction

Monster

Monster is the world’s leading manufacturer of high-performance cables. Since using PeopleSoft eBill, they have noticed increased cash flow and over 60 percent past due balances reduced by 35 percent. In addition, sales representatives gained insight into their customers and were empowered towards collection efforts.

BDO

BDO is a nationwide association of independently-owned local and regional accounting, consulting, and service. They noticed a reduction in DSo, reduced costs for letterhead, return envelopes and postage, and better communication with customers by utilizing the Contact Us feature.