7 Ways to Boost Customer Loyalty with Workflow Automation

Poor Billing Experience and Customer Churn are Inextricably Linked

The customer experience is composed of multiple interactions, from marketing emails, to customer support interactions, to the buying process, and to billing. When customers have a negative experience with your company along any part of their journey, they are highly unlikely to return but more likely to share those experiences with others.

To prevent customer churn, it’s essential to address critical customer experience factors. Some of the key factors include poor relationships, miscommunication, and rigidity. Your billing system impacts each of these factors directly—positively or negatively.

At BillingPlatform, we are focused on quote-to-cash processes, and how they influence the customer experience.  Seven elements that impact the customer experience include:

1. 1. The availability of diverse pricing and product offers
   2. Customer communication and transparency
   3. User-friendly billing processes and payment methods
   4. Quick responses to issues and requests
   5. Easy on-boarding and account changes
   6. Clear understanding of customers needs and expectations
   7. Delivering the pricing and packaging they prefer

The benefits of billing automation are exponential. A quality billing solution will help you to stay in touch with your customers and put power in their hands. Has your limited or manual billing system frustrated your customer? When billing automation works, the possibilities are endless.

7 Ways Automated Billing Benefits Customers and Prevents Churn:

1. 1. Enables diverse pricing and discount options.

      A customizable automation system can easily handle complex and tiered pricing programs, which enables you to offer creative options to your customers.

   2. Enhances communication with customers and delivers quick responses to their requests through transparency and automation.
      

      Automated billing systems offer strong customer portals. Here, customers have access to their own information much like a bank account, so they can check account activity, make payments, and get real-time information. In addition, automated messages and alerts help to notify customers of important updates or actions in a timely manner. Notifications can prevent delays in billing, issues with accounts, and further inconvenient problems that may arise without advance notice. The result is a decrease in the number of complaints and a boost in customer satisfaction.

   3. Eliminates manual errors associated with data entry, scheduling, and migrating information between systems, from spreadsheets to software tools.
      

      Fewer errors equate to fewer customer complaints, better experiences, and a more professional reputation and brand image for your company.

   4. Frees up time that you can dedicate to improving products, services, and customer experiences.

      When you are not bogged down with labor-intensive manual workflows and searching for calculation errors, your team can focus that energy on improving your business. That means greater benefits to your customers and far fewer complaints.

   5. Improves satisfaction by putting more account controls in the customer’s hands.

      Powerful tools like a customer portal enable customers to sign up, upgrade, and change subscriptions on their own. No more waiting for a customer service team member to assist. They can also select their preferred payment method and package of services or products, and receive immediate, automated responses when making inquiries.

   6. Provides more robust data through software integration so companies can analyze the information and learn how to improve their customers’ experiences.

      Integration with CRM, ERP, and taxation tools provides a rich set of data. Reporting tools will give a complete view of data and enable customers to understand valuable business metrics and advise future strategies. These analyses will highlight areas of challenge as well as success. For example, highlight the products and pricing options that generate the most revenue; and discover which areas need to be addressed to improve customer experiences?

   7. Helps companies to serve more customers and broader audiences.

      With more time for other tasks, teams can serve more customers while still satisfying their current customer base. As customer satisfaction increases, referrals will increase. The right billing automation system will handle this growth easily and continue to scale with your company. With time to innovate and a system that can handle complex pricing models, companies can provide new packages and options to reach new markets—discounted pricing and more robust services for agencies or enterprise accounts.

Better Billing Means Better Business

If your company is experiencing a high rate of customer churn, or you’re not growing at the rate you’d like, don’t worry. There are easy-to-implement solutions available to address these issues. Though most people think about billing systems in the context of payment options and invoicing, the benefits of billing automation are expansive and can significantly improve your customers’ experiences across multiple touch points.

BillingPlatform’s proven automation capabilities deliver the flexibility and scalability that every modern business requires. Our built-in workflow engine transforms your manual processes into highly intelligent and intuitive systems that will continue to meet consumer demands as they evolve.  These powerful automation tools help you put customers first, enabling your business to respond quickly to any customer requests and empowering team members to focus more fully on those needs. All of this adds up to a customer experience that builds satisfaction and loyalty.

Selecting a billing solution that supports your automation needs is a challenge. So we put together the Comprehensive Guide to Automated Billing Processes, download it today.