Empowering
It is a strong word, but the Credit Manager with easy access to all relevant information is a heavier lifter than the person flitting between systems, spreadsheets, email histories, and file structures just to prepare a one-line response to an invoice query. Answering questions or asking late payers for that all-important promise to pay is immeasurably easier if the effort and time involved in preparation are negligible. Having the facts at your fingertips, or on your screen, all just one click or a quick scroll from where you are, makes light work of what can sometimes be quite delicate conversations or digital dialogues with customers. We know from every client that every Corrivo user starts not only to love their job again but also to gain a greater sense of job satisfaction from getting straight to customer interaction without trawling through files all day. Feeling a sense of achievement is important to us all but can be especially so for remote workers, which most full-time employees are now becoming, at least for part of their working week.
Respond, Remind, Resolve
Most of our clients are large corporates with several office buildings, often across countries or continents. They tend to split the Order to Cash process into functions, with individuals performing one aspect, such as invoice issuance and query resolution, then a team responsible for collections and dunnings and a team handling aged debt, sometimes a separate team managing invoice disputes and severe aged debt. Some, however, have one team of all-rounders who manage the entire Order to Cash process for a set of customers. These teams tend to implement all three of our core modules – Corrivo eBilling to get the invoices out and to respond to queries, Corrivo Collections to manage the reminders and days beyond terms process, and Corrivo Disputes to manage any queries that are escalated to the status of the dispute, either because the team cannot resolve them within 3 days or because the customer is particularly adamant about the severity of the issue.
Empowered to Respond
Corrivo eBilling makes the job of responding to invoice queries a little like a game – the queries pop up, and often within minutes, the manager will have noticed that a new query has appeared and will have responded. That speed of response is often enough in itself to stop the query from becoming escalated or from protracting the process of invoice remittance. Those customers with an online card payment option on their customer portals find that SME customers that receive quick responses to invoice queries often take the opportunity to pay by card there and then, making the time between invoice out and cash in far shorter than if there had been no query. Fast responses to queries online by real people make a refreshing change from auto-responder emails acknowledging receipt but offering no meaningful reply. Being able to see incoming queries is one benefit, but being able to respond quickly because the information needed is almost always available without effort is the combination that makes the empowering difference. eBilling users get to clear their queries almost as quickly as they come in, which is good for motivation and good customer satisfaction.
Empowered to Remind
Corrivo Collections organises your workload so that when you log in and see the dashboard, you immediately see how many calls are due to be made that day, how many letters are written, ready to be sent with your approval, and how many are coming up. A quick look at the aged debt analysis imparts a good understanding of the amount of work coming up, too, so days are not filled with unpleasant surprises. Letters prepared by the system are grouped by the specific chase path and stage in the Dunnings process reached. A user may see 10 D1 letters and 20 D2 letters, and no D3 letters and may, for example, decide to approve all D1 letters without review, then check the status of others first. The job of the Collections Manager is very much focused on the decision-making and actions around sending those reminder letters, not on administrative or repetitive tasks.
Empowered to Resolve
Queries and invoice disputes can require delicate and diplomatic handling. Care, forethought, and consideration are required, and this does not go hand in hand with digging around in files and emails. For this reason, resolving disputes with Corrivo Disputes is easy to tackle, easy to track, and easy to review afterward to glean lessons learned and identify root cause issues. If your dispute handlers are not equipped with the tools and information, you can quite understand that the job is not always filled with the satisfaction of having turned a situation around. It is one of the reasons why AR is an area that can often be associated with high pressure and high staff turnover.
Equip your team
Whether you have outsourced one or more function within your Order to Cash process to a third party supplier or shared service centre, or whether you handle the entire shooting match in house, your team will be better equipped and empowered with the right tools and all your invoice information aggregated on one platform, accessible from one interface.
Talk to us about how we can help you.
