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E-BILLING
...continued
Efficient invoice query resolution
Additional savings are likely to come
from a reduction in time spent
resolving customer queries.
It has been suggested that up
to 40% of all business invoices are
queried and that the time spent
resolving each one to enable
payment and to balance the ledger
adds an extra £10 in costs. In our
example, this could amount to
£1,096 per day (40% of 274 invoices
x £10). The cost and delay are even
greater when a credit note is required
to offset an element of the debt.
Businesses that rely on paper-
based invoice processes will
inevitably spend more time dealing
with customer queries. A 2014
survey conducted by Opinionway for
Neopost highlights the inefficiencies
of paper-based invoice processes in
UK businesses. Almost half (47%)
complained that they wasted time
on repetitive tasks; 45% admitted
their processes were prone to human
error; and 37% said they wasted time
having to re-enter data several times
throughout a process. Moreover, one
third said they had difficulty finding
and retrieving past communications
with a customer, making problem
resolution more difficult.
Maximising success
E-billing can help improve your
efficiency and payment processes,
but to maximise the benefits it is
vital to have buy-in from customers.
Your chances of getting customers to
switch will be much higher if you do
the following:
1. Offer choice.
Give customers a
choice in how they receive an invoice.
Some will like the immediacy of a pdf
in an attachment, while others might
prefer documents to be grouped
and batched on a portal. Maximum
adoption is achieved by offering
customer choice and not losing a
potential e-invoice adopter.
2. Provide a custom subject line.
An email inbox can be inundated with
messages of varying importance –
critical, trivial, relevant and spam.
Accounts payable departments will
want to prescribe the subject matter
line. Doing so will also help your
invoices be processed for payment
quicker.
3. Consolidate multiple
communications.
Instead of
bombarding customers with multiple
email messages, consolidate them
into a single communication. You
could provide a single PDF of multiple
documents or individual PDFs per
document. Offer both, because
the more diverse and nuanced the
approach, the better the chance of
customer adoption.
4. Incentivise the customer.
Asking
a customer to accept electronic
invoices and statements can elicit the
response of ‘what’s in it for me?’. You
can do one of two things – incentivise
or levy a surcharge for paper. The
best results come from incentivising
the customer by providing a service
that is more convenient than paper-
based processes.
5. Move to data.
Printed invoices
are usually typed back into computer
and accounts payable systems. This
is labour-intensive, time-consuming,
inefficient and error prone. Accounts
payable departments want to
automate and digitise the process
and are increasingly asking for data
formatted invoices.
E-invoicing to date has been driven
by accounts payable, but accounts
receivable has just as much to
gain from digitising its processes
and invoice delivery. To find out
how Neopost can help you improve
efficiency and reduce your DSO,
please call Bren Standell on
07966 91080
or e-mail
Businesses
that rely on
paper-based
invoice
processes
will inevitably
spend more
time dealing
with customer
queries
In the last issue, we explained how the Smart UX Center
Android-based user interface running on Smart MultiXpress
MFPs enables customers to personalise devices with their
choice of apps and quickly integrate print devices with
enterprise solutions in fully automated workflows.
Printer apps are available from third parties and from
Samsung itself, which has already launched a brace of apps to
simplify servicing and maximise device uptime.
Following the introduction of the Smart Printer Diagnostic
System (SPDS), which provides video and image-based guides
for troubleshooting printer problems, Samsung has just released
its Remote Call app, which enables engineers to diagnose and fix
problems remotely using screen control, on-screen drawing and
text chat.
Samsung UK head of print Mark Ash says the new app is a
great example of how Samsung can quickly create new solutions
based on customer feedback.
“We had a meeting with a prospective customer who said ‘I
love your smart diagnostic app. I love the fact that I can connect
by a phone wirelessly, that I can turn motors on and engage gears
all through the phone. And I love the fact that it gives me an error
code that I can click to get a video on how to fix it. However, what
I want to do is reduce my cost to serve so I can pass the benefits
on to the customer, and I want
to do that remotely. Can you
do that?’. And the guys looked
around the room and said ‘No, we
can’t’,” explained Ash.
What they should have said is ‘Not yet’. For Korea quickly
came up with a solution.
“Now, if your device fails, an app says ‘Call Service’. You push
a button on the screen and it connects to an operator who you
can talk to on the phone or through the UI. They will ask you
for a one-time password so that they can remote control your
screen and see everything you do. If all it needs is basic user
intervention, they can play a video on the UI,” he said.
Paul Birkett, sales and marketing director for Samsung
Electronics Europe, adds that this capability enables service
providers to fix many problems remotely. “We can wremote into a
device and change the firmware, BIOS settings etc., so you have
a type of remote serving capability that wasn’t possible before.
Common MPS would tell you there had been a fuser fail, and all
you could do was despatch an engineer with a new fuser cartridge.
Now, we know if the fuser failure is a timing issue and can remote
in, change the settings and completely resolve the issue,” he said.
Another newly launched Samsung app is Dynamic Workflow,
which enables users to create their own workflows integrating
multiple steps, such as scanning, optical character recognition
and document distribution, into a single workflow that can be
saved as a one-touch shortcut for future use.
printingapps.samsung.com/apps.
Samsung transforms servicing with new app
Smarter servicing
1. Calculation: (Total credit x 3% interest rate)
/365 days x 70 days DSO
