share this article!

Jared King is the Co-Founder and CEO of Invoiced, a cloud-based platform for accounts receivable automation that has won numerous awards.
getty

Customer experience has evolved into a discipline and style of thinking that firms must understand over the previous decade. The core idea behind customer experience (or CX) as a business function is to look at all of the touchpoints and interactions that your customers have with your company in order to improve the end-to-end experience in both big and small ways. Purposeful CX management, I’ve found, may assist your business achieve outcomes like boosting total ticket value, increasing repeat purchases, and lowering customer turnover when done correctly. At its most basic level, improved CX benefits both the consumer and the business, potentially increasing both parties’ lifetime value.
However, because of its recent popularity, CX management is frequently included to the portfolio of the CMO or COO at large corporations. This model may work well for some businesses, but it ignores a fundamental question: Does or should the CFO’s office bear any responsibility for great customer service?
As the CEO of a software company that assists businesses with billing, collections, and payment acceptance, I believe that CFOs are responsible for delivering very critical moments in the customer experience for any company that sells on credit. This is why:
Billing aids in the promotion of the brand.
When your customer receives that paper or online bill, just one thing comes to mind: your brand. Is the bill’s style and tone in keeping with the rest of the brand experience? Is it at least attempting to appear as if it’s a part of a larger whole? When creating and sending bills, keep these questions in mind. And it should be a major focus to connect billing with other aspects of the customer experience, whether it’s done online or on paper.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR YOU
Personal communication is used in the collection process.
Companies frequently need to engage in varied degrees of prodding or arm-twisting to convince customers to take action and pay once bills are issued and open. If your clients are dealing with issues that make it difficult for them to pay, your reminders may cause some discomfort or sensitivity among those who receive them. How much control do you have over such reminders, and do they reflect the rest of the customer’s experience with your business? The CFO who cares about customer experience must consider the frequency, message, and tone of collection correspondence.
The moment of truth is when you make a payment.
Payment is likely the most crucial CFO-owned CX interaction, as it is the point at which the customer offers their money in exchange for the goods or services you’ve delivered. This should be as frictionless and straightforward as possible. Of course, this implies accepting online bill payments, but just because you accept online payments doesn’t mean your clients don’t find the process difficult or outdated. Make it not only simple, but almost effortless. The CFO and her team should evaluate a customer payment portal with a critical eye on customer experience while putting it in place.
These are just a few elements of the customer experience that are related to accounting and finance; how good and consistent they are with the rest of the CX depends on the CFO’s organization’s intentionality and smart choices. Does this imply that CX should become the CFO’s sole responsibility? Probably not, but I believe CFOs at companies that provide the best overall customer experience will have carefully considered how CX intersects with accounting and finance — and will have worked with other functional leaders in the organization to provide the best and most cohesive customer experience possible.
Forbes Finance Council is an invitation-only group of successful accounting, financial planning, and wealth management executives. Do I meet the requirements?/nRead More

share this article!