”It was purely by chance that Mike Mann, Head of Finance at British plumbing wholesaler Williams, came across PayByLink during a search on the internet. Not much later, a fruitful collaboration was a fact. We asked Mr. Mann about his experiences. “It is unbelievable how fast the implementation went.”
The largest plumbing wholesaler
Williams & Co has been the UK’s largest plumbing wholesaler since it was founded in 1922. Over the past 10 years, the company has experienced exponential growth and has a customer base of around 85,000 plumbing companies. All customers can make their online purchases via the Williams webshop on credit. They can make purchases until they have reached their credit limit, and then have to pay off (part of) their bill before they can continue shopping.
Forgot to pay
Since many customers are busy with their core business, partly paying off their credit limit is often forgotten. To remind customers of their impending or already exceeded credit limit, reminders were sent via SMS and e-mail, but these reminders did not contain a direct payment method. “Since our credit control team has 5 people, you can imagine that this way of working took us a lot of time. Moreover, payments could only be processed by telephone. Customers who received a reminder at a time when it did not suit them to pay, had a good chance that they would not be able to reach us when they did have time after office hours. All in all, this was a cumbersome and time-consuming process.”
Complete solution
That is why Mann went looking for a cooperation partner that could offer a complete SMS and e-mail service including a payment link. “Strangely enough, after Googling for a while, I had to conclude that there was not a single party in Britain that met these requirements. It was either an SMS service or an e-mail service. When by accident I finally ended up at the Dutch PayByLink, I was immediately impressed with the completeness of their solution.”
Lightning fast implementation
In co-creation, a fully personalised SMS and e-mail service was set up over 4 weeks for different types of customers at different stages of the process. For example, customers whose credit limit is approaching receive an SMS to kindly remind them to transfer some money in advance. How? With a simple press on the payment link. Customers who are already at their limit will receive yet another SMS or e-mail, and for customers who have already received three reminders, for instance, a slightly “sharper” text has been drafted in yet another template. The common denominator: paying no longer needs to be done by communicating data over the phone; it can simply be done via an internet checkout.
Personalized templates
By chance Mike Mann of British plumbing wholesaler Williams, came across PayByLink, Not much later, a fruitful Anglo-Dutch cooperation was a fact. “The personalisation options that PayByLink offers are perfect for us. The layouts use our corporate identity and our logos. Apart from the fact that the messages just look nice, the templates also radiate that they are reliable. Even when you click through to the payment site, our logos can be seen again. That is very important for many of our customers, who are not yet used to making payments via the internet. Moreover, it is extremely useful that our customers can now easily choose for themselves when they make their payments. They are no longer dependent on the telephone.”.
Make adjustments ourselves
We can adjust the texts in our text messages and e-mails at any time; we are not dependent on PayByLink for this. Ideal! In this way, we can add a discount promotion at the bottom of an email in no time, or for example a Christmas greeting. That freedom is very pleasant. We are also impressed by the speed with which payments are processed via PayByLink: almost immediately. That is why we are currently looking into expanding the cooperation. It seems to us that it is very interesting to implement a payment method that makes it possible for our customers to pay our drivers at the door when the products are delivered. This payment on delivery service means that a driver sends a payment link to the customer on the spot, or shows a QR code that can be paid immediately. Reliable for the customer, because he or she has the driver next to him and has the certainty that the product has been delivered, very effective for us because payments are received immediately! ”
PayByLink is also very proud of this great collaboration with Williams and looks forward to further growth in the future!
