Paymentus: 2021 Was the Year of Unraveling

​​Think of 2021 as the year customer experience started to transform the back office, says Dushyant Sharma, founder and CEO of Paymentus. This year, look for more companies to modernize their billing processes with an eye toward standing out from the competition — and cementing customer loyalty. Read his thoughts in the PYMNTS eBook, “In a Word: 50 Thought Leaders Sum Up 2021.”

The primary lesson of 2021 didn’t take root in 2020. It is much older and goes much deeper than just businesses reacting to the shifting realities of operating during a global pandemic. 

Customer experience (CX) has always been a consideration for businesses and service providers of all types. But disruptive forces like the explosion of digital commerce and the rise of challenger brands intent on upending traditional business models turned CX into a buzzworthy concept. In a world where consumers interact and engage with organizations across multiple touchpoints, understanding — and more importantly, “optimizing” — the customer journey emerged as a critical business function.

Over the past decade, businesses of all types retooled their systems and processes to better understand and align with the customer journey. A primary focus for most businesses was establishing and growing an omnichannel presence to ensure consistent brand interactions at every possible touchpoint. Yet, for many, updating the simple process of sending a bill and receiving payment remained a business blind spot. 

Billing has historically been regarded as an accounting function — and treated with all the enthusiasm and passion that accounting systems typically generate. In reality, billing is one of the most critical customer touchpoints across any organization, and functions more like a measure of customer satisfaction than an accounting ledger. Through this lens, billing experience (BX) drives CX. Plus, getting paid is the lifeblood of any organization. 

Given that the average U.S. household juggles between 12 and 15 recurring monthly bills to the tune of $4 trillion in annual spending, one would assume that modernizing bill pay — even to just realize the benefits of improved ontime and in-full payments — would be a top priority for billers and financial institutions. 

Yet, for many, bill pay remained a largely unintelligent and siloed system. Here’s a personal example of what I mean: My 22-year-old daughter is now responsible for paying her own bills — a personal blessing. As a proud member of Gen Z, she enrolled in bank bill pay for her credit card payments, expecting it to be a seamless and efficient way to ensure that her bill was paid on time. What she didn’t realize — and what many consumers don’t — is that most bank bill pay systems are little more than a digital interface to a manual process. There is often no connectivity between financial institution and biller. Instead, the bank mails a physical check. The biller receives no notification that a payment has been initiated. The bank does not receive confirmation that the payment has been received — and the customer is left wondering. 

You can imagine my daughter’s surprise, then, when instead of her bank mailing a check to her credit card company, the bank instead mailed a check to her — its own customer, from her own account!

In a panic, she called me for advice. I told her to try paying her bill through a digital wallet, such as PayPal. Within just a few seconds on her phone, she found her credit card company, entered her account information, made a payment and received an instant confirmation that her payment was received. 

Which of these two experiences do modern consumers expect? Which of these serves both the biller and the consumer better? It’s pretty obvious. After almost two years of managing every aspect of our lives digitally, we have little patience — and even less tolerance — for inefficient and un-intelligent BX.

In my more than 20 years in this industry, I have never experienced such rapid interest in — or uptake of — new omnichannel, intelligent billing and payments solutions. 2021 served as a great awakening for the industry. Billers and financial institutions have realized that with the right tools, they can radically transform the customer billing experience practically overnight, while driving operational efficiencies and reducing the cost to serve. It is the mythical “win-win” that every organization seeks.

What’s more, innovation is transforming billing, payments and customer service into a cohesive, data-rich ecosystem. Next on the evolutionary pathway will be using AI and machine learning to tap this sea of data to drive real-time insights that further enhance the customer experience, bolster operational efficiencies and improve customer service, satisfaction and loyalty.