Mar 3, 2025
Having the right payment portal can make the difference between recovering an account or losing it. And far too many collections agencies have the wrong portal.
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, consumers expect convenient and flexible payment options. For our client agencies, implementing a self-service payment portal connected to the Fiber CRM is a strategic move to improve customer experience while simultaneously boosting recovery rates. Payment portals empower consumers to manage their payments independently, reducing delinquencies, saving agents’ time, and streamlining the collections process.
We’ve seen that clients who successfully implement and optimize payment portals on average experience a 70% lift in self-service payments, decreasing the blended average cost to collect up to 12%.
Let’s dig into what makes a payment portal a good one. First- the offering needs to integrate directly with your CRM/system of record. Without direct and automatic transfer of information between the portal and core system, agencies tend to spend more time and effort reconciling systems than it would otherwise take to service an account by phone. However- not all integrations are equal in functionality. Some lower-performing offerings run at time-based intervals, meaning systems sync anywhere from 15 minutes to multiple days. Others don’t automatically sync at all and require manual data transfer. Not only is this wasteful, but it’s also bad practice, and opens an agency to legal risk over potential duplicative contact/payment.
Second- a good payment portal will feature behavioral tracking tools to generate meaningful and actionable insights. Our clients have realized a significant increase in recovery rates by leveraging AI tools to analyze how consumers interact with the portal and have even set up automated workflows to make sure that the conversion rate from visiting the portal to making a payment is as high as possible (more on that later). A few valuable outcomes from behavioral tracking tools have been identifying patterns in demographics of consumers who log on to make payments through the portal, recognizing from which browsers and devices consumers are most likely to access the portal, and via what method of sharing a payment portal link is most likely to drive engagement.
Third- a strong portal offering will maximize the conversion rate from a portal visit to a completed payment. The primary driver of successful conversion is having a frictionless user interface, on web and mobile devices. The design of the portal needs to be informative, but sleek. Consumers should be able to access their account details, balance, payment history, and contact information to establish that details are accurate. Then, consumers need a direct and easy way to set up secure payment, requiring clear guidance on the correct amount due and necessitating an ability to accept an array of payment methods. Beyond the standard bank transfer or card transaction, accepting digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, etc.) adds tremendous convenience to the end user.
Finally, payment portals should leverage automation wherever possible. For example, client agencies have set up workflows to contact consumers who access the portal but do not complete payments. In that instance, the portal flags the user’s ID and automatically sends an email notice reminding the consumer to complete their payment. One client with this automation in place was able to recapture about 20% of abandoned conversions by sending texts or emails and increased monthly revenue by almost 5%!
Self-service payment portals represent a transformative shift in debt collections, offering convenience to consumers while boosting recovery rates for agencies. By implementing the right payment portal and digital engagement strategy, collections agencies can drive better financial outcomes, enhance consumer satisfaction, and improve profits. Investing in the best digital engagement solution is the future of effective collections management.
