Making Toll Payments Easier with Virtual Agents and Smart Links

A customer calls to ask how much they owe. Another wants to confirm that a toll payment went through. A third has an invoice in hand and needs help paying it. Each request may be straightforward, but when your customer service team has to handle every interaction, routine payment needs can consume a significant share of its time.

For tolling agencies, that workload affects more than the contact center. A confusing payment process can delay collections, create additional follow-up and leave staff managing issues that customers could otherwise resolve on their own.

Making those interactions easier is an opportunity to improve both the customer experience and the cost of collecting toll revenue. PayNearMe’s AI Servicing and Collections Agent, paired with PayNearMe Smart Link™ technology, helps connect routine questions and outreach with a direct path to payment.

Payment friction creates work across your agency

The work of collecting a toll starts before a payment is processed and continues after it. Customers need to understand a notice, find a convenient way to pay and get help if something goes wrong. Your team needs to resolve exceptions, track payment status and reconcile the funds.

When those steps rely on disconnected systems, friction can build at every handoff. A customer who cannot find a preferred payment option may put an invoice aside. A static phone menu may send a simple balance inquiry to a representative. That representative may need to search across systems before answering the question.

Accounting teams face their own version of the problem: multiple settlement files, manual posting and fragmented payment data. Those tasks all contribute to the total cost to collect that payment, even though they sit outside the transaction itself.

Give routine calls a path to payment

Many tolling calls begin with a basic payment question: What do I owe? When is it due? Can I pay now? Helping customers answer those questions through self-service gives your team more capacity for cases that require personal attention.

The AI Servicing and Collections Agent can verify a caller’s identity before sharing account details, provide balance and due date information, and securely accept a payment during the call. It can also send a Smart Link so the customer can complete the payment digitally. Conversations are supported in English and Spanish.

Consider a customer calling about an unpaid toll invoice. The Agent can help the customer understand the balance and take the next step toward payment in the same interaction, following your agency’s business rules.

When a situation needs human assistance, the Agent can transfer the conversation to support with its context. Staff can focus on complex disputes, hardship situations and other cases that benefit from human judgment.

Make it easier to act on a toll notice

A customer should have a clear route from receiving a notice to completing a payment. Smart Link technology helps connect those steps through links delivered by email or SMS, or QR codes included on notices.

That connection also matters during a phone conversation. If a customer prefers to pay digitally, a virtual agent can send a Smart Link while interacting with them. The customer can move directly to the payment experience while still on the phone and choose from the payment options your agency offers.

For agencies, this creates more opportunities to help customers complete payments through self-service. It also makes payment assistance useful at the moment a customer is ready to act.

Connect outreach with the next step

Proactive outbound contact can be the key to reducing leakage before invoices need to move to a third-party collections partner; however, the effort required from agency staff can often be a prohibiting factor for agencies considering in-house outreach efforts.

Reaching customers about open balances takes time. When staff handle each reminder and follow-up manually, outreach capacity depends on the people available to make calls.

The AI Servicing and Collections Agent can automate outbound calls for upcoming, due or past-due payments, with voicemail and text follow-up. During a live conversation, it can help a customer make a payment directly or send a Smart Link. It can also honor opt-out requests and transfer a customer to support when needed.

For tolling teams, this offers a way to incorporate routine outreach while keeping staff available for accounts that need additional help. A reminder becomes an opportunity to resolve a payment need, with a clear next step for the customer.

If in-house outbound isn’t on the roadmap for an agency, automated outreach can still be a huge advantage for tolling collections partners, increasing their ability to collect on more violations much faster. 

Build on a connected payment experience

Virtual agents need access to the right information and tools to help customers complete a payment. PayNearMe’s AI Servicing and Collections Agent is built directly into PayXM™, where it works with payment data, business rules and servicing workflows.

That foundation supports Payment Experience Management: continuously improving the payment journey across customers, support and operations. For a tolling agency, the goal is to help more customers pay successfully while reducing the manual work surrounding each payment.

Virtual agents and Smart Links put that approach into practice by helping customers resolve routine needs, connecting outreach to payment and giving your team more time for the cases that need them.

Make toll payments easier for customers and your team

Learn how PayNearMe can help your agency expand payment self-service, support collections and lower the cost to serve. Contact us to see virtual agents and Smart Link technology in action.