Utility Provider Modernizes Payments to Improve Customer Experience
Client Overview
- Public utility serving a broad and diverse customer base
- Provides essential services and manages high volumes of customer payments
- Multiple teams involved in payment and customer support processes
- Customer experience closely tied to billing, payment, and self-service capabilities
- Needed a more modern approach to customer payments and long-term CX improvements
Challenge
- Legacy payment processor was clunky and did not consistently work as expected
- Existing payment experience did not meet the needs of a broad customer demographic
- Customers experienced friction when scheduling and completing payments
- Limited payment options created barriers to customer self-service
- Payment issues increased customer support demand and operational costs
- Manual intervention was required when systems and processes broke down
- Legacy business processes and technology constraints made modernization difficult
- Limited system integration and centralized data restricted reporting and analysis
Solution
- Conducted discovery sessions with business and IT stakeholders
- Assessed customer journeys, payment channels, business processes, and technology pain points
- Identified and prioritized payment friction affecting customer experience and support teams
- Evaluated modern payment processing options against business and technical requirements
- Selected a new payment processing solution designed to support a broader range of customer needs
- Developed a strategic roadmap for payment modernization and additional CX initiatives
- Recommended modern self-service capabilities to reduce barriers to payment
- Established a technology and integration plan to support long-term customer experience improvements
Execution & Technology
- Created customer personas and user journey maps to identify payment friction
- Conducted detailed payment channel and lifecycle analysis
- Mapped high-priority pain points across customer care, finance, and IT processes
- Planned mobile browser payment capabilities for easier customer access
- Designed integration with the organization's CRM platform
- Incorporated business intelligence and analytics capabilities into the technology roadmap
- Planned centralized data and reporting to improve operational visibility
- Defined system integration requirements to support data availability across key platforms
- Created a phased roadmap for payment modernization and future CX initiatives
- Aligned technology recommendations with customer needs, business priorities, and existing systems
Business Impact
- Established a clear path to a more modern and intuitive payment experience
- Expanded payment accessibility for a broad customer demographic
- Enabled mobile browser payment capabilities to support customer self-service
- Reduced payment friction that contributed to customer support demand
- Positioned support teams to focus on issues that require human assistance
- Improved CRM integration and access to customer information
- Expanded analytics and reporting capabilities through business intelligence integration
- Created a stronger data foundation for operational decision-making
- Developed a long-term roadmap for additional customer experience initiatives
- Selected a payment processing solution aligned with current needs and future modernization goals
