Reducing administration and increasing conversion

Online Direct Debit has radically transformed the payment process for Swale Heating

Swale Heating provide heating maintenance and repairs for over 100,000 UK households who rely on quick access to support at critical times. They decided to look for a new payments provider to enable a more efficient process which provided some administration improvements. We sat down with Jessica Smith, Marketing Manager at Swale Heating, to understand how we have helped them achieve their goals and beyond.

The challenge

“Our team were able to get Direct Debit approval online, but then had to re-key everything”, Jessica recalls of her previous supplier. Swale Heating were trying to future proof their payments process, and this meant they needed to cut down unnecessary administration and accept instant payment online. By switching, they could take advantage of all forms of Direct Debit acceptance, focusing on a digital-first approach to payments and customer acquisition. Payment details are transferred securely to the customer portal, and the team at Swale have access to advanced analytics and complete payment management through one simple to use interface.

"The Direct Debit solution have made collecting Direct Debit payments really simple. We’ve been able to reduce the effort for our customers and staff managing payments.” 

The solution

The flexibility of the multiple payment plan functionality has meant that Swale have been able to seamlessly run three separate pricing plans for their tiered maintenance support whilst retaining data clarity centrally. “The support from the team has been brilliant", Jessica comments. Together we have guided Swale to success and were on hand whether they needed expert advice on the Bacs process or technical know-how to implement IFrames.

“Our website can be tricky to integrate with”, Jessica remarks. Due to legacy technology and plans to update the site, it was important for Swale to evaluate the right supplier who could support them from day one and grow alongside their own strategy and brand. “The team were able to help us understand and make sense of some of the challenges we faced, and despite these, we have been able to adopt online payments with positive results”, Jessica confirms.

“The level of service we received from your technical team was amazing! If we ever have any issues, we’re always able to speak to someone directly on first name terms, and they always go above and beyond to get us up and running.”

The impact

Automation from the site to the customer portal has meant that Swale can better optimise their sales funnel, driving qualified traffic through prospect to purchase with fewer manual touches. “Automation has helped refocus efforts of the accounts team on more valuable tasks”, Jessica advises. With a previous gap between new and recurring traffic on the website, they couldn’t accurately monitor or manage success. Thanks to advanced analytics, they now have more granular reporting and have achieved month on month growth.

When asked to sum up her organisation’s experience, Jessica said:

“We would definitely recommend you to any business needing to take recurring payments. Working with your team has meant we can reduce our administration costs, and we are growing month on month with online sign-up. They have enabled us to work differently and also improved our own customer experience with a really simple sign-up process.”