Sandbox
Production
Ways to Accept Payments
Cross-Border Payments
Payment Optimization
Payment Types & Currencies
Fraud Prevention
Chargeback Management
Compliance
Payment Analytics & Reporting
Accounts Receivable Automation
Subscriptions & Recurring Billing
Invoice Payments
Virtual Terminal
Adams Outdoor Advertising Case Study
“We spent a lot of time trying to make sure that we had the right partner. The reason that’s so important is because a payment portal is customer-facing. If you have a bad experience with it on your side, your customers will have a bad experience…. We want it to be easy for our customers to make a payment. We think BlueSnap matches our culture very well.”
Who Is Adams Outdoor Advertising?
Founded in 1983, Adams Outdoor Advertising is the largest privately held outdoor advertising company in the U.S. In today’s world of ad-free streaming, it can be challenging for businesses to determine who will be seeing their advertisements. Adams Outdoor Advertising works in a medium that can’t be missed. The company’s traditional and digital billboards appear in 12 markets across seven states in the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast.
With their expertise in outdoor advertising, Adams Outdoor Advertising is uniquely positioned to help clients reach their ideal audience and drive results. A stellar customer experience is key to everything they do.
The Challenge
In terms of billing customers, Adams Outdoor Advertising was either physically mailing paper invoices or emailing them. AOA received payments one of three ways: by mailed-in check (the most common), via ACH payments or through a wire transfer from a bank. Without an integrated online system, Adams Outdoor Advertising had an extended payment cycle and high staffing needs.
Adams Outdoor Advertising wanted a comprehensive, feature-rich portal that would work with Sage Intacct, the company’s accounting system, to streamline invoicing and payments while allowing customers to drive the overall experience. As Sam Abrams, Senior Manager of Strategic Finance and FP&A, explains, “We have a range of customers. It was important that our customers feel comfortable adopting and using the portal. We wanted it to be simple, straightforward and easy to use.”
Finding such an invoicing and payment platform quickly became a challenge. AOA encountered platforms that could offer some of the features themselves, but then would recommend another company to fulfill the balance of the requirements. “We’ve done multiple software integrations as we’ve grown and our needs have expanded,” says Abrams. “You don’t want to be in a situation where you deal with three different companies, and then two of them break apart and suddenly you have to decide who you’re sticking with. Then you’re back to doing another software integration. It was ideal for us to have one person, one contact and one resource. Needing it to be all-in-one software eliminated a lot of our options.”
The Solution
Adams Outdoor Advertising selected BlueSnap to streamline its invoicing and accounts receivable processes. BlueSnap’s AR Automation Software met AOA’s needs to use a single solution to create customized workflows and to offer multiple payment options
With BlueSnap’s customer portal, customers can access their invoices, payment history and other relevant account information in a single, centralized location. Customers benefit from real-time reports and data, eliminating confusion over payment status.
Branding is especially important to the Adams Outdoor Advertising team. BlueSnap allows its clients to brand the customer portals and payment system as their own. This has helped Adams Outdoor Advertising to maintain consistency and to avoid confusing its customers. “A lot of [our customers] have different expectations for how things go and what they feel comfortable doing,” Abrams says. “Having something that’s Adams-branded really helps them feel comfortable.”
Adams Outdoor Advertising also uses the software’s powerful cadences feature to create custom communication streams based on different customers’ needs. This allows AOA to further personalize the customer experience, whether it’s communicating with them about invoices and payments, or even informing customers about new payment options and other features.
The Results
By implementing BlueSnap, Adams Outdoor Advertising is able to offer customers easier digital ways to pay invoices and reduce their customers’ reliance on checks, resulting in improved days sales outstanding (DSO) and cash flow.
The ability for customers to set up automatic payments or receive automated reminders via the customer portal has been well-received, and the Adams Outdoor Advertising team is encouraged by its customers’ steady adoption of the system.
The convenience of having account information, such as payment history, in a central location has improved the customer experience by giving customers easy access to the information they need. Adams Outdoor Advertising has also benefited from the time-saving convenience of the customer portal, as it allows AOA to focus on other higher-value projects rather than pulling information for one-off requests.
Ultimately, using BlueSnap allows the Adams Outdoor Advertising team to consistently communicate with customers and to engage with them in more meaningful ways, strengthening the business-client relationship.
“We spent a lot of time trying to make sure that we had the right partner. The reason that’s so important is because a payment portal is customer-facing,” Abrams says. “If you have a bad experience with it on your side, your customers will have a bad experience…. We want it to be easy for our customers to make a payment. We think BlueSnap matches our culture very well.”