SMS and mobile invoice - a smart way to charge your customers

Have you experienced not receiving payment for your products on time – or in the worst case, not at all? If so, SMS payments may be the solution you and your company are looking for. More and more people have jumped on the trend, and it’s still not too late for you to do the same. In this article, we tell you about all the advantages of SMS payment and mobile billing.

Consumers’ motives for shopping online have changed dramatically since the outbreak of the pandemic. In the past, opportunities to save money and find good deals were the biggest drivers of change. Today, however, the landscape is completely different, where ease of use and convenience have become the new buzzwords for online shopping. In other words: Customers have never been more concerned about it needing to be quick and easy to shop online!

To ensure that you play on a team with your customers and can offer them the best possible shopping experience, it is important to offer payment options that they feel comfortable using and are familiar with. This is where SMS payment and mobile billing come into play. This is an excellent solution when you need to collect payments for goods and services online or to send reminders. But how does it actually work?

SMS payments and mobile invoices simply explained

Whereas SMS payments could previously only contain the actual payment amount and a 32-digit KID number, in recent years there has been an ever-so-small revolution within mobile payments. It is now possible to send the customer an SMS with a link that leads to a landing page that you can easily adapt to your company.

On this page, the customer gets the total amount owed for their goods or services, as well as the option to choose between different payment methods; for example Visa, Mastercard, Vipps or bank payment. After the purchase has been completed, the customer is forwarded to a receipt page where you can also promote other products.

In other words, this is a service that allows you to send out invoices and reminders directly to the customer’s mobile phone; and here, the customer can quickly and easily choose between several different payment options and pay directly in the solution. Say goodbye to paper invoices and long KID numbers!

Mobile invoices have a number of advantages

In addition to mobile invoices being more environmentally friendly and cost-effective than traditional paper invoices, another important advantage is that SMSs often get more attention than messages sent through other channels. The phone is usually always in our pocket, which gives us the opportunity to react quickly to important messages – whether it concerns a payment or a reminder. This makes it easier for the customer to pay then and there, while at the same time you the merchant receive the money faster. According to Nets’ E-commerce report 2022, Vipps is the second most preferred payment method, after ordinary bank cards. With SMS payment, you can offer several different payment options, including Vipps, so that you satisfy the needs of all your customers – regardless of age group. And if you sell subscription-based services, you can also easily set up recurring payments in the solution.

It’s easy for your company to get started with mobile invoicing

Through our partner LINK Mobility, we at Nets can now offer SMS payment to all our customers. LINK Mobility is one of Europe’s leading players in mobile communication solutions, digital services, and intelligent data use. Through the LINK Mobile Invoice solution, thousands of satisfied users can pay for goods and services online and send reminders to their customers to avoid unpaid invoices. LINK Mobile Invoice gives you access to a number of payment channels in one integrated payment system for convenient and immediate payment. All processing of payments in LINK Mobile Invoice takes place in a secure manner; as all transactions are handled and authorized by the payment service provider and bank of your choice. In addition to charging for goods and services online, the solution has a number of other uses. It is, for example, excellent in so-called “no-show” situations, where you can send out invoices to customers who do not show up for agreed hairdresser/doctor appointments or workshop visits. Or it could be that you do car towing and want to charge a deposit before you send out the tow truck, so that you are covered if the customer runs away before you arrive on site. The solution can also be effectively used to remind the customer to pay a membership fee, which helps to reduce customer churn. Contact us here to get started in minutes!

Lowell and LINK Mobile Invoice – a success story

Lowell is one of Europe’s largest providers of debt collection services and has over 4,000 employees. For several years, the company has collaborated with Nets and LINK Mobility to offer its customers mobile invoices. Lowell has worked long-term to improve the customer journey and make it easier for most people to pay unpaid invoices that are overdue. In a webinar organized by Nets, Carl-Petter Udvang, business developer in Lowell, talked about how they use Mobile Invoice to help those who have lost track of their bills. Instead of sending a paper invoice in the mailbox, which people are often reluctant to open, they can now communicate effectively with customers via SMS and help them settle their bills in a more efficient way. Udvang came up with a number of tips for companies that want to use SMS payment and mobile invoicing, including that the timing for sending the SMS is critical. He says that it might be a good idea to think about the timing of sending messages to customers. For example, the mailing could happen on the 1st, 15th or 20th, as these are typical dates when people receive a salary and have money to pay the bill. He also emphasized the importance of having a concrete message with a “Call to Action”, and that it is wise to think strategically when it comes to how you structure the message. A good tip is not to make it too complicated, but to keep it short and precise. The more you loop in the SMS, the better it is. Mobile invoices have been a huge success exclusively for Lowell, which has improved its cash flow and increased its resolution rate. Because Norwegians spend an average of 18 days paying invoices by letter, this time is shortened to 45 minutes when mobile invoices are sent. Over one in three of Lowell’s users now pay their bills digitally. Vipps is the clearly preferred channel for smaller amounts (90 per cent pay amounts under NOK 5,000 with Vipps), while Norwegians tend to resort to the bank card for larger sums. This also reflects the trend in Nets’ e-commerce report for Norway, where Vipps is constantly increasing in popularity due to consumers’ desire for a quick and easy shopping experience. If you want to see the entire webinar with Carl-Petter Udvang in Lowell, where Marius Røe, Head of Payment Solutions at LINK Mobility, also talks about the solution in more detail, you can watch it in a recording (in Norwegian) here. We have also created a reference case that goes into more detail about how Nets helps Lowell to get the most out of SMS and mobile billing. Here you can also read more about why Lowell chose to work with Nets, and what results they have achieved after using Mobile Invoice from LINK Mobility.