Digital payments: Which workflow works best for your business?

Digital payments solutions give brokers and agencies the ability to improve the customer experience while better managing their bottom line and increasing cash flow. It’s a win-win-win. However, the industry continues to lag in adopting digital payment solutions.

Bringing in new platforms can slow down day-to-day operations for agency staff and create a learning curve for customers as they get up to speed on the new process, which often prevents agencies from adopting any type of new technology.

The beauty of digital payments solutions, however, is they provide flexibility in how payments are collected, meeting agencies where they currently are. In fact, there are three unique payments workflows that complement different types of business models. No matter how an agency does business, there is a workflow that will meet its needs without causing major disruption during the implementation process.

Let’s look at ABC Insurance, a fictional agency, its agent Alex, and his client Chris, to see these workflows in action.

Agent-led: Directly within the AMS

Prior to adopting a digital payments solution, ABC Insurance was using an agency management system to generate invoices, which would then be sent to clients like Chris to pay. The agent, Alex, would initiate this process by working within the AMS.

In this instance, ABC Insurance would most benefit from a digital payments solution with an agent-led workflow. These workflows are agent-initiated and allow payments to be managed directly inside a client’s account in an AMS. Alex can see and work with payments without ever leaving the system. 

From here, Alex can still send invoices or statements to Chris as he always has, but that is no longer his only option. Alex can send a payment request directly to Chris’s account. This allows Alex to generate a payment link that can be sent to Chris via text or email. No matter how the link is sent, it performs the same. When Chris clicks the link, he is taken directly into ABC Insurance’s payment portal to pay his bill. Because the payments portal is integrated with the AMS, all of Chris’s information is automatically populated without him having to input identifying information. This saves time and clicks for Chris, while also saving Alex time by eliminating the need to manually match payments with client accounts.

Insured-led: From the customer portal

Now let’s imagine a different scenario. ABC Insurance uses a customer portal that allows clients like Chris to log in to download certificates, liability cards or other documents. This gives clients the convenience of self-service while freeing up agents like Alex to focus on other revenue-generating activities. 

Adopting a digital payments solution that utilizes an insured-led workflow would allow ABC Insurance to integrate that payments platform directly into their customer portal, giving Chris the ability to initiate the payment process at his own pace in a portal he is already familiar with. Now, Chris can view invoices and make payments in the same place he gets all of his important insurance-related information. 

Similar to the agent-led workflow, payments are linked back to Chris’s account in the AMS, saving Alex time of manually matching payments to accounts. The major difference with an insured-led workflow is that Chris is taking the initiative to log into his account to pay a bill unprompted.

The independent approach: Using a hosted payment page

Where the agent- and insured-led workflows work within an existing AMS or customer portal, the independent workflow is just that – independent of another system. Utilizing a unique, hosted payment page, this workflow allows agencies to gather payment information and do the reconciliation work manually.

Let’s consider a third scenario. ABC Insurance wants to give Chris and other clients the flexibility of digital payments without integrating into an AMS or customer portal. Using an independent workflow, ABC Insurance could create a branded hosted payment page, separate from any agency operations platforms, to collect a payment from Chris. ABC Insurance could even customize the payment page’s URL to ABCInsurance.com, giving Chris and other clients the peace of mind that they are using a safe and trusted website.

That custom URL could then be sent via email or text, included in outgoing invoices and in Alex’s email signature, and even embedded in ABC Insurance’s website. ABC Insurance can allow Chris to pay only due invoices in full, or give him the ability to pay multiple invoices, make partial payments or down payments. Once Chris makes a payment, Alex can then go into his AMS and match that payment to where it belongs in Chris’s account.

A workflow for every agency

Consumers expect a simple, modern experience when paying for products or services online – and this expectation extends to insurance. To accommodate this expectation, agencies require a solution that provides flexibility in payment type and method for their clients while integrating into core management systems to automate the collection, application, and reconciliation processes, easing the burden of their staff.

And even though taking on new technology may seem daunting, agencies shouldn’t let the fear of change management stop them from adopting a digital payments solution. There’s a workflow that works for any business model no matter how an agency collects payments so they can take advantage of automation without disrupting business operations or creating confusion for clients.