PayJunction and Twilio Team to Combat Manual Payment Slowdowns

Payments company PayJunction has launched an integration with customer engagement platform Twilio.

The integration, announced Tuesday (July 8), lets PayJunction merchants deploy artificial intelligence (AI)-driven interactive voice response (IVR) solutions that securely process payments over the phone and do away with manual processes.

“Merging Twilio’s innovative, customized experiences with PayJunction’s robust payment technology will equip businesses with the tools to quickly scale their phone payment operations without increasing PCI scope,” PayJunction President Randy Modos said in a news release.

“Outsourcing phone payments often means higher costs and less control over customer interactions. With the Twilio and PayJunction integration, businesses gain access to a robust feature set and tailored pricing that aligns with their specific needs.”

As the companies noted in a news release, conducting manual payment processing over the phone is an error-prone process, taking up valuable staff time, interrupting workflows and decreasing customer satisfaction.

By employing secure, AI-driven IVR solutions, the companies say, PayJunction’s Twilio connection reduces errors and gives staff more time to tackle higher-value tasks.

“With the elimination of manual processes, businesses can significantly lower customer wait times and increase order capacity,” the release added.

The offering comes at a time when manual processes continue to bog down payments, with 35% of mid-sized firms remaining entirely dependent on them, according to research from PYMNTS Intelligence.

Manual workflows, often involving paper checks and data entry, are ripe for inefficiencies and errors, with one study showing human error in manual data entry as a prime cause of invoice disputes and payment delays.

“This widespread reliance on manual procedures, especially among small to mid-sized businesses where over 75% still manually chase collections or handle disputes via email, leads to significant operational challenges and cash flow uncertainty,” the report added.

PYMNTS earlier this year explored the role things like IVR play in modernizing payments in an interview with Lisa McFarland, executive vice president and chief product officer at Ingo Payments.

“We’ve increasingly begun using AI-based tools in the technology area,” she said, adding that these tools, particularly in code analysis and completion, improve productivity for junior developers, enabling faster and more accurate delivery of solutions.

However, efficiency gains aren’t confined to internal operations. Dynamic interactions using real-time analytics are transforming customer experiences.

“We’re dynamically changing an experience with a customer based on behavioral or other data analytics,” McFarland said.

She said these capabilities promise a future where AI-powered interactions are not just equal to human service but possibly superior.