It should come as no secret: electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) solutions are gaining popularity among businesses as customers increasingly demand fast, convenient, and secure ways to manage their bills and payments. Companies that send transactional communications are now facing an “adapt or perish” situation. If businesses don’t offer customers convenience and options in the way they make payments, they will soon lose them to competitors that do.
EBPP solutions meet these expectations by providing quick and easy ways for people to pay their bills that benefit both businesses and their customers. A study by McKinsey found that 89% of adults in the United States now use digital payments, reflecting a significant shift toward electronic transactions.
Key Benefits of Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) Solutions
From faster payments and reduced costs to a better customer experience, EBPP solutions provide a more efficient and user-friendly approach to billing and collections. Let’s have a look at the key benefits of EBPP.
Assuming 45% of 134 million U.S. households, or roughly 60 million, applied for credit, and 48% of those applicants were declined, creditors needed to send nearly 30 million adverse action letters last year. With printing and 2024 first-class postage costing $0.75 per adverse action letter, creditors may have spent more than $22 million on credit denial communications that bring in no revenue or profit.
1. Accelerated Revenue Cycles
With traditional paper billing, there is a significant lag time between statement or invoice delivery and payment receipt. EBPP solutions enable faster transactions by allowing customers to receive and pay bills electronically – which means real-time.
The digital process reduces the length of the billing cycle, leading to improved cash flow and reduced days sales outstanding (DSO). By offering secure online payment options like credit and debit cards, ACH transfers, and digital wallets, businesses can shorten the time it takes to receive payments and reduce outstanding receivables.
2. Customer Experience That Builds Loyalty
Generic customer portals no longer suffice. Today’s consumers evaluate service providers partly on their digital payment experience. Cedar reports that 58% of consumers returned to providers that provided a positive billing experience, while more than 38% have switched providers after a negative billing experience.
Well-designed EBPP solutions don’t just facilitate transactions, they strengthen customer relationships through personalized dashboards and flexible payment options tailored to individual preferences.
Read more in our white paper: Integrating Communications and Payments Improves Customer Experience
3. Cost Reduction Beyond Postage
Implementing an EBPP solution helps businesses save significantly on costs – and it goes further than just the paper and postage expenses that you’d expect.
When you consider these hidden costs, the savings become even more substantial:
- Staff time managing mail returns and payment processing
- Manual reconciliation and error correction
- Cash flow costs from delayed payments
- Environmental impact and sustainability concerns
For enterprises sending thousands or millions of statements monthly, the annual savings can reach six to seven figures while simultaneously improving sustainability metrics.
4. Fewer Customer Service Inquiries
EBPP platforms empower customers with self-service capabilities, allowing them to access billing information, make payments, and manage accounts without needing assistance. This leads to a reduction in customer service calls, enabling support staff to focus on more complex issues.
Self-service EBPP portals directly address common billing questions such as:
- “When is my payment due?”
- “Has my payment been received?”
- “Can I see my payment history?”
- “What payment methods do you accept?”
- “Can I set up automatic payments?”
Each diverted call leads to operational savings when accounting for customer service representative time, technology overhead, and opportunity cost.
5. Streamlined Workflows and Increased Productivity
Modern electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) solutions go beyond digital billing. They automate key processes to improve efficiency and ensure timely payments.
Some examples include:
- Sending automated payment reminders to reduce late payments
- Transitioning from digital to print communications if a customer doesn’t engage with electronic messages
- Enabling self-service options, such as one-time payments or recurring billing, to reduce manual processing
By automating these steps, businesses can minimize manual follow-ups, reduce administrative costs, and improve cash flow – especially important for industries with high transaction volumes.
6. Security That Protects Both Parties
With financial fraud attempts growing every year, security has never been more important. Comprehensive EBPP solutions offer sophisticated encryption and fraud detection that protect both businesses and their customers throughout the entire billing and payment lifecycle.
Electronic billing systems go beyond basic security measures by implementing multi-layered protection strategies. These include end-to-end encryption of payment data, sophisticated authentication protocols, and continuous transaction monitoring that can identify suspicious patterns before they result in losses.
Unlike legacy paper systems, modern EBPP platforms also automate compliance with complex regulatory frameworks like SOC2, SSAE 18, and PCI Level 1, and industry-specific requirements such as HIPAA compliance for healthcare billing.
This compliance automation not only reduces regulatory risk but also builds customer confidence in the security of their financial information.
7. Omnichannel Integration of Payments and Billing
EBPP solutions often support multiple channels, including email, SMS, mobile apps, and traditional print and mail, allowing businesses to reach customers through their preferred communication methods. This omnichannel approach ensures a seamless and consistent experience, enhancing customer satisfaction.
The best EBPP platforms can integrate with traditional print and mail methods to provide one single system to handle all communications. While the shift to digital is real, there are still some consumers who want print and mail communications – or a combination of both digital and paper.
What’s more, when you combine billing and payment processes into a single system, not only are operations streamlined, you’re delivering greater customer satisfaction by meeting their communication preferences. By adopting EBPP solutions, businesses can achieve faster payments and reduce costs while improving customer relationships.
Whether you’re in healthcare revenue cycle management, financial services, utilities, property management, or any industry that sends transactional communications, the question isn’t whether to implement EBPP – but how soon you can adopt it to stay competitive and meet customer expectations.
Electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) solutions are no longer a luxury – they’re a necessity. Consumers want fast, secure, convenient ways to pay and manage their bills, and businesses that fail to offer digital options risk falling behind. But not only that, the benefits EBPP brings are massive. The shift to digital billing isn’t just about convenience, it’s about future-proofing your business and ensuring long-term success in the digital world.
Please contact us for more information about electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) solutions.
