Credit Management December 2022

PAYMENTS
AUTHOR – Tim Annis
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The pandemic has also highlighted the value of good credit management,
there were many stories of credit managers suddenly at the top of their CEO’s
speed dial as the focus on cashflow become intense.
RtP gives the customer control, flexibility
and simplicity around how they manage
their finances, which means billing and
payments becomes a positive part of the
customer experience. And who knows,
they might just talk about it too.
Top benefits for billers:
1. Real time insights allow you to see what
a customer is doing with your bill saving
time and the cost of chasing.
2. Straight through reconciliation of all
payments – which means faster cash
allocation, and effort better spent in
other areas.
3. A transformed customer experience –
create a closer connection with your
customer at the most frequent touch
point – billing and payment.
Top benefits for payers:
1. Control: no Direct Debits at awkward
times or bounced, the customer can
decide on the day that works for their
financial situation.
2. Flexibility: they can pay how they want,
when they want, on the go, or at their
desk, without fuss.
3. Simplicity: no phoning up suppliers or
remembering lots of different logins, they
can manage it all from a single place.
should of course “ignore this letter if you
have already paid”. Which you did….a
week ago…
Its a mess, and there is little to
no certainty for either side and no
real control.
Better connections
RtP changes all of this. Rather than
throwing your invoice over the wall you
can now send out a ‘Request’; a digital
invoice that can contain as much data as
needed, direct to your customer, to their
mobile/tablet/laptop. And you will know,
in real time, when they have received it,
opened it, paid it, part paid it, scheduled
it for a specific date, don’t want to pay or
have a question on it. I’ll say that again;
in ‘real time’, so you don’t need to send a
chaser, you have live insights on what is
happening with your invoice.
Payments made are linked to the
specific ‘Request’ that was sent, that
means reconciliation data for even
part payments allows straight through
allocation of all payments across all types.
RtP is a secure channel so there is no
ability for fraudsters to intercept the
“Request” and if they could, it doesn’t hold
any payment information that they can
change. That’s one fraud vector removed.
From a customer perspective they
now have the ability to see the exact bill
that they have received, who it’s from,
what it’s for; they can use the payment
method of their choice to make the
payment; they can pay it straight away,
part pay it if they need to, schedule it for
a date that suits their financial situation
(within contracted terms of course!), raise
a query or if they don’t recognise it, then
they could choose not to pay it. Ultimately,
These points are just the tip of the
iceberg of how RtP can help to create
better connections with customers. Good
customer experience means a happy
customer, and that makes them much
more likely to pay on time and to come
back. With the challenging economic
environment that we are all operating
in, a focus on the customer has to be
key and making billing and payment
an experience that the customer enjoys
makes sense. If it also helps your bottom
line, provides new value or revenue then
that’s the icing on the cake.
Check out Request to Pay and find out
how you can transform the billing and
payment experience for your teams, your
business and your customers and I’ll
be back in a future edition with some
real-life examples of RtP in action.
Tim Annis is Managing Director of Bluechain.
Brave | Curious | Resilient / www.cicm.com / December 2022 / PAGE 25