Brand management has always been considered a strong goodwill building technique. Creating a strong brand value in customers psyche has the power to drive results. It is vital to any organization success in any economic condition. Sending online invoicing does act as a catalyst in improving your brand image. It reflects the level of professionalism the organization has achieved and instils a sense of trust and faith in customers. During an economic downturn, it is this trust and belief that keep clients and customers glued to that particular organization.
When times are hard and money is in short supply, your clients become more averse to spend their money. As a result, they become a little more circumspect about who receives their business. I am not suggesting that online invoicing is paramount in retaining customers, but it certainly reveals a lot about how a company goes about its business. The level of importance it gives to the clients as well as customers convenience. Though the market is fairly immature about implementing online invoicing, only the enlightened ones have shown positive response.
The fear of recession still looms large and the situation is only expected to become gloomy. Embracing online invoicing does give you a chance to stand in tough times rather than cascade in the fading light.
This is how online invoicing is beneficial in countering recession:
Online invoice has definitely been an advantage to service providers as it reduces the expense of paper bills and brings down customer service calls to the customer support centre of the service provider, thus saving lot of money. Online billing also facilitates the customer to pay his dues easily through online features after seeing his bill thus allowing easy cash flow to the Service provider when compared to traditional payment processing methods. Other benefits can be as follows:
1) Instant cash can be made available as payments can be made instantly.
2) Working capital can be increased as you are never short of cash even though the sales may dip.
3) Eliminate bad debts as the chances of invoices not reaching the concerned person are minimal and also the invoices don’t get misplaced.
4) Early payment discounts since the company has enough liquidity to pay for its rent, raw materials, etc.
From the customer’s point of view the advantages are:
1) To view invoice at the click of a button and pay instantly.
2) 24/7 access to billing records, both the service provider and the customer can access their billing records and manage their payments.
3) Payments history can be viewed from the database, outstanding payments can be tracked and customers can be reminded of their dues online.
4) As online billing system runs on third party payment gateway integration, it get rids of all the potential threats.
5) The most important, customers can see online the discounts offers based on the invoice amount or service used and thus make the best use/choices of the services offered.
The amount of time and money that can be saved through online invoicing can be staggering. The financial matters and receivables are taken care of and thus help in sustaining through tough times.
