There are fewer options for in-person customer interactions as more customers choose self-service. Online interactions must be clear and purpose-driven to maximize user happiness. Clients who lose patience with an online transaction, including invoicing, or who are not happy with the user experience cease to be clients. 

Since billing is the only regular contact you have with clients, it is imperative to make sure they have positive billing experience. Customers are demanding more self-service interaction as pay-as-you-go and subscription services grow in popularity. As a result, billing procedures, service terms, and tiers need to be well-organized. Since billing is an extension of your brand, it should be a seamless addition to self-service. 

The ROI of the Customer Experience 

Don't undervalue the significance of the customer experience when it comes to billing or any other area of consumer interaction: 

• After two negative experiences, 86% of consumers say they would stop doing business with a reputable brand. 
• Poor call center experiences cost American firms 74% of their clientele. 
• 61% of buyers are willing to spend 5% extra for superior customer service. 
• If a customer has a consistently favorable experience, 65% of them will become lifelong customers. 
• Unplanned client churn costs American firms $35.3 billion a year on average.

Providing reliable, consistent services to clients fosters client loyalty. The desire of customers for a suitable good or service at a fixed price is one of the things propelling subscription services. Self-service portals allow users to take charge of their accounts and interactions, which fosters customer loyalty. You should be able to keep your current clientele and generate steady income if you meet or surpass their expectations. 

Your monthly invoice serves as a point of contact with clients. Sending follow-up emails to make sure the customer received your previous email is not acceptable customer care, despite what many marketers think. Making sure clients are happy with the support and overall value of their purchase—that is, that they don't feel overpaid—is the essence of providing excellent customer service. Positive client interactions are a guarantee of good customer service. 

Receiving bills is unpleasant for anyone, but it's made worse when they're unclear or wrong. The agreement you have with your customers to provide them with exceptional customer service ends with an invoice. Invoices must be viewed as a component of client interactions to provide the best possible customer experience, increase customer happiness, and guarantee a continuing contract. 

Maximizing the Benefits of Customer Billing 

Several actions can be taken to improve your invoice so that it contributes to customer interaction: 

Employ a hosted, automated billing system. A lot of companies still handle billing manually and with spreadsheets. But manual procedures are prone to human error and are not scalable. It becomes more difficult to close the books each month as you get more clients, and you'll eventually realize that hiring enough staff to handle manual billing is not feasible. There is no other option but to automate. 

By automatically comparing customer contracts and records, automated billing makes sure that bills are correct and sent on schedule. It's also simpler to accept digital payments using an automatic invoicing system, whether they come from credit card, bank transfer, online portal, or third-party payment processors like PayPal or Google Wallet. Additionally, you have a scalable platform that can expand with your company when you use cloud-based billing. Additionally, a hosted billing solution can produce more precise data for in-depth analytics and is simpler to combine with other company systems like CRM. 

Be dependable - Clients like reliability. Clients seek reassurance that you are managing their account. Every month, they should anticipate seeing the same bill with the same design and payment information. Frustration arises when unexpected line items are added or the invoicing format is changed. Here, automation is useful since it guarantees consistency. 

A component of consistency is timeliness. Every month, invoices should be sent out simultaneously so that clients are aware of when to expect a bill. This procedure reassures customers that your company offers dependable service and assists them in creating their own personal budget. 

Establish payment conditions that are unambiguously specified. Standard collection terms need to be very clear. Even if an invoice is payable upon receipt, it should nevertheless have a due date and clearly state the implications of not paying. Most clients will have a set period of time for payments, after which you could choose to charge interest or other penalties. If you have devoted clients with a solid payment history, you can think about providing more accommodating terms for payments. 

Provide self-service When given the option, customers will choose self-service. When interacting with vendors, over 80% of customers indicate they prefer self-service options. One area where customers prefer not to engage with a support professional is billing. Using a payment interface to make a straightforward payment should be simple and painless. 

Customers should be able to review their accounts, including past payments, terms, and information about the customer agreement, as part of self-service. Additionally, they must have the ability to update their account details, address, and mode of payment. 

 Customers should be treated as individuals, not as accounts, and your billing system should strengthen the commercial ties you have with them. Send a polite reminder rather than a demand notice if a customer is behind on their payments. Give the customer the benefit of the doubt, presume there is a mistake, and be ready to resubmit the money for processing if there is an issue with its processing. A cooperative relationship is ideal with the customer. 

Making billing a pleasant experience is important because it can be your only consistent communication with clients. You can maintain accuracy and consistency in the client experience by using a billing platform such as Work 365.