Remote work is increasingly becoming the new normal for many companies. Whether they are your employees or independent contractors, remote workers need to access data with a minimum amount of handling and manipulation to be efficient and effective.
For your AR team that means they need accounts receivable data which has been updated for payments. This can be a problem if a large percentage of customer remittances are made by check, and support staff responsible for processing checks and applying cash are not working.
With online collections and cloud-based credit and collection platforms your AR team can access up-to-date customer account information from any location. The key to successfully accomplishing this is to properly prepare customers for your changeover to an online collections model.
Here are some tips on how to prepare your customers.
Notice
Give your customers sufficient advance notice that all payments will be moved online. The notice should include:
- Reasons
- Increased efficiency and lower costs
- Faster update of customer accounts
- Business trend to cashless transactions
- Online Transaction Options
- Online portal
- Credit/debit cards
- ACH
- EFT
- Fintech apps such as Apple Pay or PayPal
- Benefits
- Lower cost than processing and mailing a check
- Convenience – pay bills from anywhere at any time
- Faster update of account balances
Documentation
Provide documentation of how to use an online portal including a video if possible. Don’t assume that your customers are tech savvy. If they are still paying you by check they may be late adopters and find even minor changes to be a challenge. A video can be very helpful in these situations, because as the old saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words”.
Customer Success Team
Prepare your team members who will be fielding customer questions and concerns. Make sure they understand what to expect so they can be helpful and empathetic but convey in a friendly way that all customer payments are moving online.
If your customer service team members are well prepared, it will make the transition to online collections much smoother.
Proactive
Be proactive. Consider a second notice as the transition day approaches. Check with a few key accounts to be sure that they will be ready. Review the preparedness of your customer success team.
Moving collections online is the direction many companies are taking to increase efficiency, reduce costs and increase cash flow. Online collections also make it possible for your AR team to work efficiently from any location.
Cloud-based credit and collection platforms provide the solutions you need to take full advantage of online collections.
Lockstep Collect is a market leader in cloud-based credit and collection platforms. Lockstep Collect can help you to take full advantage of online collections.
If you would like to learn how you can benefit from online collections, please contact Lockstep Collect at www.lockstep.io.
