Case Study Border States
Border States’ Online Bill Pay helps serve customers on their terms
11,600
invoices processed in 4 months
28
invoices per customer in trial
90%
increase in adoption
The Situation
They’re an employee-owned company that is one of the largest materials providers for thousands of companies worldwide. We helped give their customers the convenience of online bill pay.
Border States redesigned its Customer Business Platform on SAP Commerce Cloud and needed help with the User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX). As a next step with the platform, Border States wanted to address the increasing need of customers to view and pay their invoices online.
“Online bill pay was an initial step in creating a continuously evolving customer journey. With help from the Smith team, we were able to begin this digital transformation, based on the customer direction, with the evidence being in customer adoption.”
Adam Guderian – Border States IT Applications Director
The Work
So, we got to work, enabling the Border States Customer Business Platform with online bill pay, including establishing ACH payment capabilities. We implemented invoice payment messaging for all authenticated users, along with the option of self-service invoice payments. We also saw the need for a redesign of the self-service administration pages for a more consistent experience. In addition, we added stored payment methods and invoice payment status to this PCI-compliant solution, which accepts multiple payment methods. To validate the new tools and processes, Border States ran a three-week pilot program with a subset of their customers. In addition to this user-testing illustrating some opportunities for improvement related to customer experience and platform engagement, the results shed some encouraging light on just how transformative the initiative could be for the company.
Real Results
Border States found that customer adoption of the new online bill pay option was swift, and the positive results were nearly instantaneous. Customers could now pay their invoices quickly, with frictionless digital commerce. In the three-week pilot program alone, Border States processed more than 1,100 invoices for 40 customers – an average of 28 invoices per customer. Customers with dozens of outstanding invoices were clicking “Select All” and paying all open invoices in just one step. By enabling customers to quickly and easily pay invoices, Border States significantly reduced the amount of work for its customers, received payments faster, and saved hundreds of hours of accounts receivable time in just a matter of weeks. Customer feedback showed a high level of satisfaction with the new online bill pay feature on the Border States website, which is expected to translate to more repeat business and increased customer loyalty.
In the first four months the online bill pay feature was live, Border States processed more than 780 payments and over 11,600 invoices. Hundreds of customers are now conveniently paying online after a hard day’s work.
Each month the adoption rate of the online tool increased, with a 90% increase the second month, a 32% increase the third month, and a 36% increase in the fourth month.
Inspired by the success of the online bill pay project, Border States is now looking to partner on new capabilities for its customer business platform, including building an application focused on project and materials management, with the goals of improving customer service, increasing productivity, and reducing risk across their construction management operations.
