InvoiceCloud's research revealing that 82% of consumers prioritise customer experience and security in billing platforms exposes a critical gap between consumer expectations and current vendor positioning. The finding arrives amid a broader industry shift toward agentic AI and hybrid support models, yet billing—arguably the most sensitive touchpoint in the customer lifecycle—remains underserved by the major CX platforms. This creates a peculiar market dynamic: whilst Salesforce invests $3.6bn in AI customer service capabilities and platforms like Freshdesk compete for CSM dominance, the billing experience itself has largely escaped the CX transformation that's reshaping support, sales, and service operations. For teams already embedded in Zendesk or Salesforce ecosystems, the question becomes whether these platforms' billing integrations genuinely meet the dual mandate of frictionless experience and data security, or whether specialist vendors like InvoiceCloud are capturing demand precisely because general-purpose CX platforms treat billing as a back-office function rather than a strategic customer moment.
The security dimension of this finding warrants particular attention. Billing platforms handle payment data, personal financial information, and transaction histories—making them high-value targets for breach attempts. Yet the research suggests consumers view security not as a hygiene factor but as a competitive differentiator, implying that many current solutions are perceived as inadequate on this front. This has direct implications for CX leaders evaluating platform consolidation strategies. Choosing a billing solution based purely on integration breadth with your existing Freshdesk or HubSpot instance may expose your organisation to security perception gaps that undermine trust across the entire customer relationship, particularly if your billing experience lags behind the AI-enhanced, personalised interactions customers now expect elsewhere in their journey.
The timing also signals a maturation in customer expectations around operational transparency. As support teams adopt agentic AI and blended human-AI models, customers increasingly expect that sophistication to extend to transactional experiences. A billing platform that merely processes payments without delivering proactive communication, dispute resolution, or personalised payment options will feel antiquated relative to the conversational, context-aware support customers receive through modern service platforms. For CX professionals, this research is a reminder that platform selection cannot remain siloed by function—billing experience directly influences NPS, churn, and support volume, yet it's often delegated to finance teams with different success metrics.
InvoiceCloud Research: 82% of Consumers Surveyed Want Billing Platforms That Prioritize Customer Experience and Security Business Wire
InvoiceCloud Research: 82% of Consumers Surveyed Want Billing Platforms That Prioritize Customer Experience and Security Business Wire