CheckFree Web 4.0 Makes it Easy for Mainstream Consumers to Become Satisfied Electronic Billing and Payment Users
Wednesday November 19, 8:30 am ET
-- What's Next in the Industry-Leading Platform: Simplified Single-Point Bill Management Interface, Faster Payments, Self-reminder and Notification E-mails, Enhanced Integration with Online Banking, and the Highest Quality Customer Experience to Build Loyalty --
ATLANTA and NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Retail Delivery Conference Booth #2453 (November 19, 2003) -- CheckFree Corporation (Nasdaq: CKFR - News) today announced the newest version of its industry-leading electronic billing and payment technology platform and service, CheckFree Web(TM) 4.0. With CheckFree Web 4.0, financial services organizations can provide the best consumer experience available, and make it easy for mainstream consumers who try electronic billing and payment to move from enrollment to bill set-up, to scheduling and checking status of payments. In many cases, consumers can elect to schedule same day and next day payments increasing the value of the service with greater payment flexibility. The new functionality greatly improves a customer's ability to manage personal finances online, offering greater control, convenience and time-saving benefits.
Customers of financial institutions offering CheckFree Web 4.0 will immediately notice a more consumer-friendly user interface that will help strengthen adoption rates. With a single screen, the application consolidates access to the most frequently used features, such as making payments, setting up and managing e-Bills, and viewing payment history. The new Single-Point Bill Management center improves site navigation and guides customers through all bill viewing, payment and status monitoring activities. CheckFree Web 4.0 significantly streamlines the entire user experience, enabling more intuitive, easier access to rich features with significantly fewer clicks.
The new platform is the result of extensive client and consumer research, usability testing and development investments, from which CheckFree consumer services providers benefit. A July 2003 consumer survey with Vividence, which compared version 3.2 of the CheckFree service to an early version of CheckFree Web 4.0, found that the consumer experience dramatically improved across all key performance metrics. These metrics included a consumer's likelihood to return to the service, overall satisfaction, overall organization, expectations met, site speed, and likelihood to recommend. In addition, the customer acquisition metric improved by almost 100 percent from version 3.2 to the early version of CheckFree Web 4.0.
Faster Payment Processing and Enhanced E-Mail Capabilities
CheckFree's consumer research found that users instinctively want balances updated, and payments made and credited faster. CheckFree offers the highest electronic rate in the industry - more than 75 percent of payments are sent electronically from the consumer's bank to the merchant - which enhances efficiency, accuracy and security. Due to this extensive network of merchant relationships and payment routing options, CheckFree Web 4.0 enables consumers to use a dynamic calendar to view and choose earliest available payment dates, which may be the same day or next day, to schedule payments. The status of each payment is updated when the remittance information is sent, and again when the merchant reports that the payment has been processed and posted. Other payment processing enhancements include advanced account transfer capabilities that enable consumers to schedule funds transfers from one account to another, either within the same financial institution or from one institution to another.
Consumers can now also use the application to send reminders to themselves about when bills are due, for a CheckFree e-Bill(SM) but also for a "pay anyone" smaller merchant bill, such as a day care provider. Through a secure link, they can then schedule payment of a specific bill from within the reminder e-mail. This provides a greater level of control and assurance that the consumer has done everything possible to manage their money by scheduling bills to be paid on time. In addition, consumers are protected by the CheckFree Guarantee against liability for fraud, and late fees or interest charges on the payment amount if the payment was scheduled to arrive on time. Consumers can also receive past due notices, payment posting confirmations and e-Bills sent directly to their e-mail inbox.
Tighter Online Banking Integration and Improved Analytic Tools
CheckFree's infrastructure allows "in session" connection technology for two-way sharing of data and flexible integration of other online banking information alongside the service, so consumers can view balances or other online banking data. Within the electronic billing and payment application, consumer service providers can display funding account balances at the time the consumer logs into the product.
Additional integration tools make real estate on the CheckFree Web interface available for providers to leverage cross selling of other financial products. An education demonstration on CheckFree e-Bill is promoted within the application to encourage activation. In addition, new users are guided through the process of adding payees and scheduling payments, while returning users are taken directly to the Bill Management Center.
CheckFree Web 4.0 consumer service providers will also find a new set of data analytic tools and services that enable them to better understand their customers' behavior, integrate with their online banking strategies, and market additional services. With the new release, CheckFree will provide complete Customer Intelligence, enhanced data feeds and analytics for greater subscriber insight, including such rich data as subscriber activity, payment history or full transaction analytics that may even be married with consumer survey data. In addition, CheckFree will offer Dynamic Data Stream components that include pending payment information from a real-time feed that populates a consumer's check register within the online banking application.
Intelligent Payee Set Up, e-Bill Activation and Management
CheckFree's exclusive, new Suggested Billers feature makes CheckFree e-Bill activation easier than ever by providing an intelligent list of the most popular billers in a customer's area based on zip code. Payee and e-Bill set up is also greatly streamlined, with a "smart" setup tool that asks for the minimum amount of information necessary, such as biller name, account number and zip code. Supported by CheckFree's vast merchant network, the application can match each consumer's payment with the accurate electronic payment destination or lockbox address.
As they add a bill, the ability to select convenience options such as automatic payments, providing payment amount parameters within which the payment should be automatically paid, and e-mail notifications and payment confirmations are easily accessed from one page.
The activation of e-Bills is important to consumer service providers as shown in primary research from CheckFree Research Services (April 2003) that found providers whose subscribers have activated electronic bills experienced higher retention, product usage and payment volume rates, and enjoyed significantly lower customer care support costs associated with electronic billing and payment transactions.
"CheckFree Web 4.0 provides our financial services and banking partners with new features that will help develop better relationships with customers, increase adoption and activation of electronic billing and payment services and meet the financial management needs of consumers," said Steve Olsen, executive vice president and general manager of CheckFree's Electronic Commerce Division. "When organizations choose the CheckFree Web platform, they implement an industry-leading solution built on over 20 years of experience and ongoing consumer research. In addition, those customers benefit from our singular focus on the electronic billing and payment service and an unwavering commitment to Sigma-level quality, from our operations to customer care support services, to meet the needs of the mainstream consumer."
The Value of CheckFree
Behind the new product lies a total partnership between CheckFree and its customers. CheckFree is committed to continuous innovation, was the first company to launch the Internet bill and has more than two decades of experience in pioneering electronic payment solutions. CheckFree customers benefit from its product lifecycle management investments from research to concept, usability, and delivery. CheckFree extends this expertise to its customers by offering account support, client services, merchant relationships, customer care support that is seamless to the consumer user, marketing and consultation services, and market research. Financial institutions do not simply get an application when they select CheckFree Web 4.0, they benefit from the breadth and depth of CheckFree's experience, and its dedication to providing the highest quality consumer experience available, which is necessary for consumer adoption to occur.
Unmatched Focus on Quality
One result of CheckFree's Sigma Quality program was that this year CheckFree voluntarily raised its service level agreements for consumer service provider clients. This new SLA holds the company to the highest standards in online service availability, file processing delivery, payment accuracy, and payment investigation among other measurements. These increased customer commitments were made possible by the consistent level of efficiency and performance that CheckFree's end-to-end Genesis electronic billing and payment platform achieves. This platform was built to scale to accommodate U.S. consumer adoption, including e-Bill and payment processing at high volumes. In addition, CheckFree this year raised the minimum service requirements for its customer care operations, including e-mail inquiry resolution, and is adding a new minimum threshold for telephone hold times, to guarantee continuous and timely response for first-tier customer support on behalf of consumer service providers. . .
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