5 Payment Experiences Your Customers Already Love (and Expect from You)

Customers no longer have to imagine a future where all it takes is a tap or a click to make a payment. It’s here. It’s our reality. And they aren’t looking back. Because of this, payment expectations continue to evolve. With every smooth retail checkout, one-tap payment in an app, and a transparent invoice comes the growing expectation from customers that all of their experiences should be this way. 

The Expectation Gap

Customers don’t compartmentalize payment moments by industry. The standard isn’t set by utilities or any other single sector; it’s set by the last checkout a customer completed. The expectation gap is the difference between what customers expect from those experiences and what they find when it’s time to pay you. And it’s costly. Every clunky payment step is a reason to call, a reason to delay, and a reason to trust you a little less.

What a Weak Payment Experience Costs You 

Weak payment experiences can show up in different ways in an organization, but here are three key areas you’re going to want to pay attention to.

Trust

A bill is often the most frequent or maybe the only touchpoint you have with your customers. Whatever it makes them feel, it transfers to your utility. And many don’t feel good. 43% of customers report considerable anxiety over monthly utility bills. Trust is built or lost at the moment of payment. A clear, confirmed payment calms the anxiety a bill creates, while a murky one adds to it. 

Call Volume

When self-service fails, your customers' next move is to pick up the phone. Digital tools that aren’t easy to understand result in call volumes that are 26-35% higher. Each call costs the agent time and the customer effort for something often simple, like requesting a payment confirmation. Clearer digital tools keep routine questions out of the contact center.

Collections

Utilities cite collection as one of their top billing challenges. This could, in part, be attributed to comparatively low AutoPay rates. Just 53% of customers use AutoPay for their utility bill compared to 75% for telecom and subscriptions. Every customer who pays manually is another chance for a late or missed payment, and another collection touchpoint. That 25-point gap shows that customers already trust AutoPay elsewhere; so why not utilities?

How to Close the Expectation Gap 

Our recent webinar, Payment Lessons for Utilities: What Other Industries Get Right (and Wrong), examines good and bad payment experiences across four industries: entertainment and ticketing, higher education, subscriptions, and banking. As a bonus, we take a deep dive into accessibility, a topic that matters to every business that bills customers and collects payments.

What the webinar replay offers:

• A clear view of how these experiences shape what customers expect when it’s time to pay
• Insight into why the expectation gap is so wide for utilities
• Practical tips for closing it

Each of these lessons can be applied to your own payment experience, helping you build more trust with customers, reduce call volume, and improve collections.