4 Big Reasons to Ditch your Dropbox
In this digital age, it is essential for governments, utilities, and other service providers to embrace modern and secure payment technology. Adopting new fintech isn’t about keeping up with the Joneses. Making these necessary upgrades is the first step towards better serving your customers and better supporting your staff. Once a popular choice for accepting payments, dropboxes are now an outdated and risky way to collect payments. Here are four major drawbacks to using dropboxes.
1. Dropboxes are Vulnerable to Break-ins, Theft, and Fraud
Let’s face it: dropboxes are easy targets for anyone interested in stealing cash or valuable customer personal identifying information (PII). While security cameras or other forms of surveillance can help, these measures only work in the moment of a breach or after the theft has already taken place.
Customers will experience feelings of unease when dropping off payments at a dropbox, worried their payment or information could end up in the wrong hands. More concerning: these customers are more susceptible to fraud and identity theft. Utilizing cloud-based self-service payment options significantly reduces security concerns and customers receive confirmation of their payment on the spot.
2. Dropboxes are not Intended to Collect Cash Payments
Most organizations do their best to discourage customers from leaving cash payments in the dropbox. But this poses issues for many customers. In some areas, as many as 60% of customers make in-person payments by cash, and many are left without an accessible option for in-person payments. Taking time off of work to make regular payments at payment centers is an unnecessary burden for any customer to carry.
Without a secure option to make cash payments in person, many customers feel forced to risk it and place cash payments in the dropbox anyway. Self-service payment channels like kiosks can provide a very secure way to collect payments from cash customers during and outside of set business hours.
“[Residents] love the kiosks. They love the fact that they can pull up at midnight and hop out of the car, go put their tax payments in the kiosks, and get a receipt. Prior to this, we had drop boxes and they were actually dropping tax payments in an unsecured dropbox and walking away with no receipt.” – Chief Operating Officer, City of Lakewood
3. Dropboxes Delay Revenue Collection and Posting to Accounts
Every organization operates differently. Some collect payments from dropboxes daily while others do so less frequently. But no matter how frequently your staff empty the dropbox, these payments still require processing once they are retrieved. This can lead to delays in payment processing, which increases the risk of costly service shutoffs.
There is a cost to your staff as well. Maintenance staff might be forced to go out to shut the service off and turn it back on once the customer’s payment has been received. This wastes valuable time and resources that could be better used to complete other important tasks.
Consolidating all payment channels with a centralized platform can provide a massive reduction in payment processing delays and post payments to accounts instantly to avoid shutoffs of essential services.
4. Retrieving Payments from Dropboxes is a Big Burden for Staff
Staff are already busy helping customers at the counter and handling the back-end of payment processing. The additional responsibility to step away from the counter to retrieve payments from the dropbox redirects valuable time and energy to just the physical collection of payments and other billing information.
This is also a major security concern. Staff going to retrieve payments from an unsecured receptacle comes with its own risks. This responsibility could be completely eliminated by using secure and modern payment technology.
It’s Time to Leave Outdated Revenue Collection Behind
Dropboxes have always had their limitations and now, many of those limitations have turned into liabilities. Modern payment technology provides a more accessible and versatile alternative for secure revenue collection and reconciliation processes.
The added benefit to you and your staff is that cutting-edge technology will continue to evolve to thwart the bad actors. An innovative vendor with a proactive approach to data security is an ideal partner to keep your customers’ payments and information safe. Embrace the secure way forward. Ditch the dropbox. Your customers and staff will thank you.
