I had signed up for new service. When the first bill came, I saw it was a higher amount than the sales rep had quoted me. I called the customer service number on the bill. The customer service rep explained that sales always got the amount wrong, and he didn’t know how they got away with that. I immediately tried to cancel, only to be told I had a one-year commitment. After an hour walking up the chain of supervisors, I was good and cancelled. Worst part of this whole fiasco? It was a Fortune 500 company with plenty of resources to handle customers, and billing, correctly.
I wish I could say this is an isolated occurrence, but it isn’t. Sales and marketing go out looking for ways to hook in new customers. Billions are spent. Promises are made. Expectations are set. Customers buy.
And then, all too often, customer support, billing, and other areas of the business begin the process of convincing customers to leave. Billions to get the customers in the door. Then billions more are lost as those customers, in frustration, leave for their competitors.
I am often astounded at how hard companies strive to attract me as a customer, only to then turn around and take my business for granted once they have it. It is almost as if the two sides of the business are actively working against each other.
I not only design billing applications, but I also do a lot of training and writing / lecturing on best practices. There are three things I try to enable in my own customers to help them stop the bleeding and make sure that all areas of the company work together to provide a seamless, positive customer experience. While I mostly work with banks, I think these recommendations are important for most businesses.
Clear, Concise, and Accurate Bills – Customers look to their bills to answer basic questions. What did I buy? How much do I owe? When is it due? How can I pay? If your customers struggle to answers those simple questions, then your billing statement needs help. If the customer can’t read the bill without a guide book, then it needs a redesign. Simple, clear, accurate – anything else leads to frustration. Frustrated customers are a flight risk.
Model the Same as You Bill – Remember my opening story? The modeling application used by sales did not include all the taxes, surcharges, miscellaneous fees, etc. that are included in a normal bill. The estimated bill amounts were always off for this company, sometimes wildly so. Flat-rate service bundles are a great idea to simplify a customer’s life, and they make quotes infinitely simpler. If you are in a business that requires complex fee and tax structures, then make sure the modeling tool and the production billing platform share the same pricing algorithms. Otherwise, customers will notice, and they will get angry.
Train and Empower Customer Support – Whether on the phone or in a chat application, customer support representatives are your company as far as many of your customers are concerned. If customers don’t have confidence in them, then they won’t have confidence in you. Customer support reps should have the skill and the power to offer refunds, rebates, additional services, etc. to soothe and retain customers with complaints. Amazon does this better than any company I have ever seen, and other companies seem to be finally catching on.
Spending stacks of money to attract customers, only to drive them away makes absolutely no sense. If you company is not paying at least as much attention to retaining business as to attracting it, then you really need to rethink those priorities.