Paying bills is painful. What can banks do to ease the pain? Only 40% of online banking users use their bank’s bill pay functionality, which is famously one of the “stickiest” features for retaining customers. Fiserv and Allied Payment Network offer two innovative approaches to help users get started paying bills digitally with their bank. Gamification Fiserv recently released a new version of its CheckFree RXP bill payment service that incorporates gamification to make bill payment “more intuitive and engaging for customers,” according to a press release. There are three primary gamification elements in Fiserv’s new product: A progress bar, familiar to online survey-takers, indicating stages of getting started with bill pay Tutorial elements to help users input data into fields Advanced features that are “locked” until certain tasks are completed These are classic gamification elements that are “gamelike” in form, not content. They can provide a sense of accomplishment to a user completing the required tasks, when done well. Fiserv says that its preliminary results indicate gamification is increasing the number of billers added to the service after signing up with the service, as well as scheduling bills to pay. PicturePay Another strategy to make paying bills enjoyable employs the [...]