Marija Loncar of Arvato says what has not been said about customers’ convenience in the ecommerce space: companies should highly consider a customer-friendly debt collection process too
The customer is king, however, when it comes to outstanding invoices, customers might easily feel otherwise. For this reason, ideally, consumers should see debt collection as part of the purchase itself.
Convenience is the key factor for success in online shopping
Online shopping allows people to sit comfortably on the sofa and choose from among a range of products more diverse than anything found offline. No crowds when shopping on Saturdays, no annoying search for parking spaces, and no traipsing from one shop to the next until you finally find what you are looking for - that’s what online shopping is all about. So it’s no wonder that more and more people prefer to purchase their products online, since it’s incredibly convenient, stress-free and saves a great deal of time. Convenience is for once the key USP that online merchants can offer their end customers, and their utmost priority – something I see time and again when working with ecommerce companies. That applies to the design of the online shop, the way products are presented (and displayed), and the ordering and payment process too.
Convenience is key in debt collection too
Even though convenience is a major consideration throughout the whole purchasing process, I often find that it gets tossed out the window when it comes to receivables management, and this is a huge mistake. Debt collection procedures play, in fact, a significant role, especially in ecommerce. The sector faces payment defaults more often than any other. It is, therefore, all the more important for ecommerce companies to pay attention not only to a good shopping experience, but also to a convenient and customer-friendly debt collection process.
Online merchants should not see receivables management as a separate part of the shopping process, but almost as an extension of the checkout process. Otherwise, there is a great risk that customers who may be willing to pay but are unsatisfied or annoyed may be lost to the competition. This can happen in a flash. These days, consumers are quite willing to look elsewhere, especially if they feel an online shop is not customer-friendly. The range of online shops is enormous, and if a customer feels they have had a bad experience with one merchant, they will just switch to the next. Even a shopping experience perfectly tailored to consumers is quickly forgotten if the end customer is then faced with a complicated and utterly generic debt collection process. Online merchants should hold their customers’ hands here too and make receivables management part of the shopping journey. In my experience, this will make it significantly more likely that they will also stick with the online shop in critical situations.
What counts is how consumers are treated
This is where we support our ecommerce customers. We aim to offer end customers as much convenience as possible, including in the debt collection process. One example is the payment process: customers can easily and conveniently pay directly by text message or email via Paylink. We also focus on the actual person when addressing defaulting end customers. For example, this means our choice of language, tone, the time of contact and channel of communication, as well as specific payment options offered to them.
In short, at Arvato Financial Solutions, we provide the exact same service that we recommend you should provide when dealing with your end customers. We offer solutions tailor-made to your end customers. After all, everything should be as convenient as possible for our customers, too.
Read here about how convenience can be carried over to receivables management too.
About Marija Loncar
About Arvato
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