Commercial businesses, government offices, non-profit organizations, and other organizations all deal with clients every day. In many cases, there are agreements made between the client and the organization they deal with that entail regular payments of a set amount. When a client falls behind on these payments, the organization must contact them, find out what happened, why it happened, and make a plan to get back on track. Each client must be contacted this way and in an organization that serves tens of thousands, that can mean hundreds of cases to be managed and clients to be contacted.
The more you examine the process, the more manual tasks you find. From emailing or calling the client the first time, to follow-up messages if that first message is missed, to the final confirmation that further action will have to be taken, the amount of work it takes to stay on top of a single client could easily take up a couple of days’ worth of effort. The more clients there are, the more case managers you need, and if they are all working out of the same spreadsheets and databases, things can get messy quickly.
Fortunately, there are digital options that will allow for a cleaner, smoother experience that takes care of some of the heavy lifting automatically. This will increase efficiency, ensure certain important tasks are completed, record the delivery of messages, and provide valuable information about client interaction with those messages. An automated payment reminder solution will pick up some of the workload in all these areas at once.
How Can I Set Up an Automated Payment Reminder Solution?
Setting up a solution like this can be difficult and involve stitching together multiple solutions at once to achieve the desired result. Alternatively, you can find a solution that caters to all your organization’s needs regarding payment reminders at once. The ideal solution in this case would be one that can perform every, or nearly every aspect of the payment reminder process in a single, centralized location without having to perform heavily technical tasks or write custom code.
In an ideal process, the organization would set up a set of templated messages, as well as some conditional rules by which the automated solution would abide. As well, in the client database, the database would track the client’s location in the payment reminder process, allowing their case manager to see what is going on with their file with only a few moments of work. The ideal solution would also include a scalable structure that could grow or shrink as the need for payment reminders shifts. This should lead to more action taken where it needs to be and less time spent on cases that do not really need a hands-on approach.
In this blog, we have built an easy four-step guide for building an automated payment reminder solution for you to try out.
Setting up an Automated Payment Reminder Solution
Step 1: Centralizing client data
You will want to create a digital form that you can use internally for case managers to upload the details of new cases coming in. This ensures that new cases will be structured correctly for the process moving forward and that there isn’t a lot of administrative work to be done on these new cases.
After your form is created, you will want to set up a process whereby existing cases can be funneled into your new central database via integration or a file upload. These will have to be arranged in such a way that all the requisite data is both uploaded and displayed within the solution. For other processes that will update or alter client data, other forms can be created. With a powerful form builder, you can set up your forms exactly the way you need them to be constructed down to the shape and color of the Submit button.
Step 2: Templating your reminders
Prior to a client going through the reminder process, you will want to have your reminder messages templated out. These messages should contain the merged information the solution pulls from the database, providing the client with the due date of their payment and personalizing the message. Each of these messages will be the trigger that moves a client along the tracked process as well, flagging their client profile each time they receive a reminder until the process is completed. This allows the case manager to know quickly how many reminders a given client has received. Once the templates are done, you are ready to enter client cases into the form you built and begin to process cases.
Step 3: Tracking client progress
The tracking process that the client moves through will help to alert case managers when manual outreach is necessary. By checking the client profile, they can see if a client has received reminders and whether the account has been settled. If the account is not settled after a set number of reminders, a task will be created for the case manager. From there the client can continue in the automated process until a final reminder or be processed into a collections or garnishment program, as necessary. When a client has reached the final stage, the central database will create a task for the case manager to follow up, review the reports and determine what action should be taken.
Step #4 Reviewing the reports
The reports will contain crucial information on the delivery of your messages and each client’s interactions with them. By reviewing the reports on a regular basis, you will identify any issues in deliverability and be able to act on them quickly. Furthermore, you will have evidence that will support technical difficulty claims, helping you to identify more accurately when there are issues with your automated payment reminder system. Ideally, however, this will primarily be used to see how clients interact with your system and when messages are being delivered. This is because your solution should have early detection systems that resolve issues largely before you even know that there was a problem.
This process seems straightforward and easy to build. The tools within the system, however, seem like they all come from various places and maintaining so many tools would cost a lot of money, from your client database, form builder, email blaster, SMS tool, and more.
Where can you find a solution that has all these tools in one place at one rate?
SimplyCast anticipated a need for a system like this in many industries and areas of work. Anyone who serves clients runs into issues with payment at one time or another. We built the entire payment reminder solution using our in-house automation technology. The tools are all already connected and streamlined for your use. This allows you to focus on nurturing your client relationships and collecting the funds agreed upon.
All these tools are available on a single platform, at a single rate. This means that you can send every payment reminder from the same system without having to worry about alternate services. Additionally, the platform is both scalable and versatile. This means that you can customize the usage of the platform to serve exactly the purpose you need from emergency alerts to newsletters and general marketing. No matter how large or small your organization, no matter what types of communication you do, we can help.
Why wait? Speak to our experts today! Click the button below to request a demo of the solution!
