101 Questions for Your Payment & Presentment Partner

101 QUESTIONSFOR YOUR PAYMENT AND PRESENTMENT PARTNER

The presentment and payment industry is changing rapidly, and we know that it’s tough to gauge whether your partners on this front are keeping up. Knowing the considerations that go into maintaining a comprehensive strategy that addresses your business needs and new technology considerations, all while meeting consumer expectations is a huge challenge. Billers agree that

manage without true expertise and real insight.

It’s important to ensure that you’re positioned to remain ahead of the market, and that all of your suppliers are willing and able to be consultative partners to you in this new market opportunity. Whether you’re seeking a new payment and presentment partner and are preparing to issue an RFP, are trying to understand your provider’s full scope of offerings relative to industry trends, or are simply wondering if you’re getting the most from your current

To that end, Western Union Payments® is proud to present this list of 101 questions to ask your present or potential payment and presentment partner.

We recognize that every business has different needs and that those priorities can vary considerably from biller to biller. To account for this, we interviewed our clients, alliance partners, consultants, industry experts and marketing leadership in order to compile this checklist. Their responses ranged from basic functionality to less obvious considerations, all of which will help to give you

to help you create the most value from your billing and remittance strategy, both now and well into the future.

Company Background1. What is their primary business?

2. How many years have they been in the payment and presentment business?

4. How many years have they been working with your industry?

5. What is their market presence in the payments industry?

6. What is their market presence in your industry?

7. What is their client relationship philosophy?

8. Can they provide strong references?

Payment Types9. Do they accept ACH (drawing from checking, savings,

and money market accounts), credit card (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express), debit card

Pulse, Accel) payments?

customer base?

Internet

options and fee structures for subsidiaries?

15. Do they require preregistration to use the payment site?

16. Do they provide site logging tools?

17. Do they offer an electronic wallet with multiple payment types and management capabilities?

18. Do they offer an online payments history view?

19. Can the consumer sign up for complementary solutions (e.g., eBill enrollment and paper suppression, payments

20. Do they capture an email address with the payment?

21. Do they offer customized, simple URLs?

IVR

options and fee structures for subsidiaries?

23. How is the customer passed from the biller’s IVR to the payment IVR?

25. Do they offer call drop tracking for trouble shooting purposes?

27. Do they offer remembered payment features?

28. Can the consumer sign up for complementary solutions (e.g., eBill enrollment and paper suppression, payments

CRS and Management–Facing Tools

and management portal?

31. Does it support unlimited users?

33. Does it support complete auditing tools?

Recurring

38. Through what channels do they offer recurring?

39. Do they send electronic communications to consumers to notify them when a recurring payment processes?

40. Are these payments processed and funded in the same

41. Do they offer specialized reporting on recurring payments?

Mobile42. Do they offer payments via text message?

43. Do they work with all major carriers?

45. Do they offer a payments app? For which smart

phone platforms?

eBills46. Do they provide both push and pull eBilling solutions?

47. Do their eBills have integrated payment options or will the customer be forced to another page to make a payment?

48. Are there solutions in place to maximize deliverability for push solutions?

49. Are there reporting tools in place to measure and address eBill activity?

50. Do they provide marketing opportunities in the eBill?

51. Do they have a comprehensive eBill adoption strategy?

Online Banking Payments52. Do they offer expedited online banking payments?

53. Do they offer guaranteed funds for online banking payments?

54. Do they provide account validation for online banking payments to prevent posting errors?

49. Are there reporting tools in place to measure and




53. Do they offer guaranteed funds for online banking


39. Do they send electronic communications to consumers to notify them when a recurring payment processes?

push solutions?

49. Are there reporting tools in place to measure and address eBill activity?




53. Do they offer guaranteed funds for online banking payments?


Reporting

online tool?

59. Is the reporting data exportable into multiple formats?

60. How many standard reports do they provide?

63. Is an eLockbox solution available?

Customer Communications64. Do they help to design a comprehensive consumer

adoption marketing strategy aligned with your business goals?

options?

67. What types of consumer marketing do they support? Through what channels?

68. Do they have a mobile messaging strategy?

69. Do they provide email append services?

Hosting Environment & Compliance70. Is it a fully hosted solution?

71. Are there any hardware or software requirements?

(i.e., across two hot sites)?

73. What is the approach to redundancy?

74. What is their business continuity plan?

75. How does their total capacity compare to current

76. What integration options are available? Real time?

77. Are they compliant with all applicable standards?

78. What application monitoring is in place?

79. How long is payment data retained so it is available

Processing & Funding

82. Is a single remittance available?

83. Are they merchant processor agnostic?

Account Management86. Do they provide free hosting, implementation and

upgrades?

87. How do they approach client support?

88. Do they sponsor user groups or industry consortiums?

89. Do they provide regularly updated business intelligence?

90. Will they advise on industry best practices throughout the relationship?

91. Will they help create a payment strategy that will create more value for your business?

92. Will you have the same account management and

management protocols?

94. Is technical support available on a 24x7x365 basis?

95. Where is their support located?

96. What are the escalation paths?

97. Is support accessible through email and phone?

service?

99. What is their ongoing product strategy?

100. What additional value can they provide?

101. How do they differentiate themselves from their competitors?

Western Union® Payments is committed to helping billers create the most value from their payments strategy by

partnering to give your customers convenient, cutting edge ways to pay. From presentment to payment, our services

ABOUT WESTERN UNION PAYMENTS

101 Questions for Your Payment & Presentment Partner

Economy & Finance

Transcript of 101 Questions for Your Payment & Presentment Partner