Industry: Government
Taking total control of the payment experience
How solving a disjointed user flow helped a SaaS provider drive payment adoption and revenue.
Control over the payment offering
Branded experience for residents
API integration
The Challenge
A disjointed payment experience put growth outside the platform’s control
A SaaS provider serving municipal governments discovered that their payment vendor was getting in the way of growth. The payment experience created friction at a time when the SaaS provider needed to scale and retain their early clients.
The SaaS provider discovered that “embedded payments” from their vendor actually meant redirected. At the most critical point in the journey, users were sent to a third-party page. A different brand and a confusing, fragmented flow. The SaaS provider had lost control of the quality and performance of its payment offering.
It got worse.
The payment vendor’s barebones capabilities gave the SaaS provider limited ability to solve the primary needs of their customers. City governments often have different payment sites for each department. Pay your water bill here. Pay your parking ticket somewhere else. The provider’s customers needed a platform that consolidated the payment experience to a single site while also providing separate and consolidated reconciliation reporting
The provider’s current payment vendor also offered a poor resident experience that was hurting adoption and forcing the municipalities to spend more time and cost on in-person support and check processing.
The solution
One payment experience.
Fully owned. Designed to drive adoption.
The SaaS provider switched to DirectEmbed. Now it could provide one seamless payment experience within its own brand. The switch also gave them new capabilities that drove higher adoption across all demographics of residents. Built into the platform. Delivered out of the box.
Built to launch fast
For the development team, DirectEmbed was a fast, straightforward implementation.
- APIs, low-code, and no-code
- SSO included
- Pre-built features
- All payment channels fully integrated from day one
What a unified payment experience looks like
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Four payment categories unified in a single experience
Taxes, permits, utilities, fees. One login. One combined statement. One brand experience. -
Accessible payment methods to meet residents where they are
Pay by mobile, desktop, text, voice (in the resident’s language). Interacting with the city got simpler and more secure for residents of all ages and technical abilities.
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Special features that grow usage and adoption
Roommates can split utility bills and pay individually
Residents can authorize payers so a loved one can help with bills
Combined statements mean tickets or taxes don’t fall through the cracks
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Complete transparency and control for AR teams
Fast reports to track payment status and resident enrollmentPayment links and pay-by-phone
Dedicated deposit accounts
Reconciliation reports available as separate or combined
The results
The payment experience changed the relationship. With residents. With cities. With the platform.
The SaaS provider turned its payment experience into a competitive advantage. A fully embedded receivables experience now lives directly inside their platform via APIs. Their team owns the receivables journey end-to-end, and citizens and administrators can manage taxes, permits, utilities, and fees in one place.
Creating a more customer-friendly offering has helped the platform grow its portfolio of government clients and increase payment volumes.
A new competitive advantage
More new government customers
Greater payment volumes and revenue
Higher resident adoption
“This government SaaS provider leveled up its payment and receivables experience and changed how residents relate to their hometown.”
— Nirmal Kumar, CPO, Aliaswire