The billing and payments industry had a monumental 2013! We witnessed the take-off of consolidated billing sites, the climb of electronic bill delivery and payments, the shift to more customer-centric billing methods, and overall streamlining of the order-to-cash process. It’s safe to say we’ve had a busy year.
The New Year is the time to start over by focusing on resolutions. However, there are some phrases that billers hear far too often that are “so last year!” Below are three of phrases that we should do away with:
1. The bill is in the mail
How many times have you heard this excuse?
Changes in the USPS including price increases, office closures, and the possibility of eliminating home delivery impacts the time it takes to receive a payment by 2-3 days.
The focus for any organization should be getting bills to customers quickly and accurately by offering a range of channels for customers to receive their bills, and more importantly, making sure there is a range of channels offered for receiving payments.
Many organizations have eAdoption plans in place to help customers make the switch the electronic methods which reduces DSO and overall costs. This is the year we can do away with the excuse “The bill is in the mail.”
2. Your bill is confusing
Your bill should build relationships with your customers, not hurt them.
A bill redesign can go a long way in improving customer satisfaction and quicker payments. Your customers should be able to easily read line items and totals. The same design should be used for presentment, on customer self-service portals and in collections software to reduce confusion. Lastly, your bill should also be used as a messaging tool to relay important information to your customers each month.
3. Can you resend my bill?
There are two key issues occurring each time you hear this phrase.
First, all paper bills should be sent with tracking allowing you to easily access its journey through the postal system. When your customer calls asking where their bill is, your customer service representative should easily be able to pull up their bill tracking and see if and when the bill was delivered.
Second, your customers should have easy access self-service tools to answer any billing questions they have. Self-service portals should allow customers to see their invoice history and most importantly- pay their bills online. This will increase customer satisfaction while reducing the amount of customer service calls.
Those are the top three phrases that should be put to rest.