Reminder Messages for Billing and Payments

Forgetting to pay a bill is a universal experience, but it doesn't have to be a reoccurring one. In this post, we will look at why people don't pay their bills on time, how text reminder messages can help, and why Reminderly is the perfect reminder service for your billing department.

Why People Have Overdue Payments

Forgetting: Clients can easily forget to pay a bill. After all, many people choose to submit payment manually each month. According to recent research, over 30% of people pay their bills manually. They may do this to make sure that they can make the payment without over-drafting their bank account. Relying on memory or calendar notifications to submit an upcoming payment offers plenty of opportunities for human error.

Never Received: This is especially common when customers receive their bills in the mail or email, as opposed to automatic payments. Mail gets lost or people forget to check their mailbox regularly, and emails can go into junk folders. 

Disputing a Bill: If a customer needs to dispute a bill, they may easily forget to call to follow up, causing them to ultimately have an overdue payment.

Economic Hardship: Many customers may not be able to pay their bill by the due date because they can't afford them. Perhaps the client is waiting on a paycheck to arrive, so late payments, even if they include late fees, may still be easier.

How Payment Reminder Messages Reduce Late Payments

Payment reminder messages are easy to set up and are extremely effective. According to recent research, 90% of text messages are read within 3 minutes. Here are several ways that payment reminder messages can help.

Multiple Reminders: Forgetting to pay a bill is easy, so many companies send multiple reminder messages. These can catch clients at different times, reducing the likelihood of forgetting and late payments. 

No Spam: An email reminder may go to a Spam or Junk folder. A text message reminder, however, will not be stuck in a catch-all folder. SMS payment requests can be short and contain a link to a payment portal.

Online Payments: Recent research shows that 72% of people pay their bills from their phones. A text reminder that contains a direct link to the billing page makes this process even easier.

Late & Upcoming Payments: SMS reminders can be used to get a timely payment in multiple ways. You can send a reminder message to a customer as soon as their invoice is created, with an upcoming due date, and once there is an overdue invoice.

Two-Way Communication: If a client does not receive a bill, or is experiencing economic hardship, messaging the customer in real time can solve any confusion, such as making sure you have the right address or email address for the client, or setting up a payment plan, or changing the due date of future payments. If the customer needs to dispute a bill, they can discuss payment details with you directly. A payment reminder message is a perfect way to open communication.

How Reminderly Can Help Invoice Payment

Reminding customers of invoices is incredibly important to receive timely payments and outstanding payments. Reminderly has many features that can take care of these processes for you so that you don't have to worry about it.

Automated Reminders: At Reminderly, you can automate reminder messages, so that they are sent without additional effort. We offer options to send multiple reminders for payments - for example, you can send a reminder one day before the due date, a reminder the day after the due date, and a reminder the day that late fees are expected to increase (e.g., 7 days after the due date).  We can also customize your reminder messages based on the type of invoice and include any important information that customers need.

Customization: Reminderly offers full customization of your payment reminders. This enables you to include a direct payment link to the page and include the payment due date. You can also include a friendly reminder about late fees if payment is remitted after the due date. Every business is different, so you can send SMS payment requests in a way that best suits your business.

Optimize Your URL: Many URLS are extremely long and cumbersome. This is especially frustrating in text messaging and may even look like a scam or spam. We offer the ability to shorten a URL to make it easier to include in SMS messages, making payment links easy to use.

Integration: Reminderly integrates directly with multiple different platforms, including Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Google Sheets, Excel files, and CSV files. We also offer additional integrations and custom integrations depending on your specific needs.

Communication:

Two-Way Communication: In our "Messaging" section, you can send text messages to a customer in real-time, and they can reply directly to the message. This allows your customers to easily have a back and forth conversation with you.

History: Reminderly automatically keeps track of your reminder messages so that you can confirm if it was received.

Payment Reminder Message Templates

While we offer multiple examples in other blog posts of appointment reminder templates, below are some payment specific templates.

"This is a friendly reminder that your invoice remains unpaid and will soon incur additional late fees. Please pay here: <<link>>, or contact our office to schedule a payment."

"This is a payment reminder that your bill's due date is in seven days, please make a payment now through this <<link>> to avoid late fees"

"You have an overdue invoice, please pay here <<link>> to avoid an additional late fee which will go into effect in two days."

"This is a reminder message that your invoice number "123" is due by 11:59 PM, please submit a payment at: <<link>>."

"This is a friendly payment reminder text that invoice number "123" is due in 7 days, please review payment details here <<link>> and submit payment here <<link>>. Reply to this message to speak to a representative."