In today’s fast-paced education payment landscape, managing payments effectively has become both a critical challenge and a competitive advantage. As payers (students) and recipients strive for seamless transactions, the lack of clear status updates at each step of the payment process often leads to frustration and uncertainty.
Moreover, the absence of an effective support channel to address queries in a prompt manner further exacerbates the issue and reduces student satisfaction. It’s no surprise that the question surrounding payment status inquiries reigns supreme among the most frequently asked questions for businesses and institutions.
This summer, we have launched a few student-centric enhancements designed to solve these challenges. Our latest updates will help streamline payments and refunds tracking, provide clear and timely email updates, and manage student queries effectively through a new intake form, providing students with greater clarity, convenience, and confidence throughout their payment journey.
Payment and refund tracking: Real-time transparency for peace of mind
Transparency is vital for students and payers alike. Without it, payers are in the dark, uncertain about the progress of their transactions which breeds frustration. As payers raise queries around payment status, multiple teams often spend hours manually responding to each query. To bridge the information gap and keep payers informed at every stage of the payment journey, we have launched our new and improved payment tracking tool for students.
Intuitive visuals and transaction details (including the payment reference number, institution name, and transaction amount) advise a student or payer where they stand in the payment process, inform them about next steps, and provide a timeline for when the institution will receive payment.
The new tool also provides effortless refund tracking, which empowers students with the option to self-serve and access real-time updates on their refund status. With simple and clear messaging such as, “awaiting your bank details,” and suggested next steps, students have peace of mind throughout the refund process. The new tool saves time, reduces the need to contact our support team or their institution, and fosters trust in the platform.
Personalized payment email enhancements: Keeping you in the loop
Based on feedback received from students and our partners at different universities, we redesigned the email channel to add touchpoints that keep students and payers informed throughout their payment journey. The upgraded channel is now applicable to all payment methods and is amplified with supplementary emails, updated branding, intuitive design, and improved copy.
The updated payment initiation email prominently presents the reference number, ensuring students can effortlessly raise inquiries related to their payments. Additionally, the email outlines clear next steps for the payer, enables one-click payment tracking, and includes a detailed transaction summary. The new payment delivery confirmation emails inform the payers that their payment has been sent to their institution.
This improved communication fosters a stronger connection with our valued customers, partners, and students, ensuring they are always in the loop.
Enterprise case management platform: Enabling self-service
Through a user-friendly intake form connected with an enterprise case management platform, students can now raise a case around payment or refund status, payment instructions, credit or debit card payments, technical issues, price promise, or any other queries they might have. The support intake form has already been added to the Convera GlobalPay for Students (GPfS) and GPX platforms and has replaced the [email protected] contact email address.
The intake form helps students and payers efficiently find answers to their queries by capturing all necessary information upfront and avoiding email back-and-forth. Helpful FAQs around common inquiries reduce the need to escalate requests to Convera support channels, saving valuable time and effort. Students and payers who do submit a request are assigned a case ID to easily track progress and next steps.
The platform allows our support staff, irrespective of their location, to access all previous interactions, case notes, past cases, the case audit log, and attachments related to the student and their query. It increases visibility into the volume of student queries, common concerns, and categories of requests, allowing us to make data-informed decisions to improve the platform and our virtual assistant.
At Convera, we are committed to delivering exceptional and innovative solutions for the higher education industry, and the 1.2 million students worldwide that use our platform, we want to make the global tuition payment process simple, efficient, and stress-free.
For more information on our product offerings and to share feedback, please reach out to your key account managers and help us shape a brighter future for education payments.
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