Putting the customer journey at the forefront has become a standard practice across many industries. While the customer experience (CX) discipline isn’t brand new, it has rapidly become the center of many B2B companies as customer expectations reach new heights post-pandemic. In fact, 80% of B2B customers say they expect consistency across all digital touchpoints, no matter what department they interact with.
With many B2B companies taking a more holistic approach to CX, CFOs are now challenged to join the movement. Although often overlooked, the cash-flow cycle process that CFOs oversee is critical to creating the frictionless experience that paying customers expect and impacts a brand’s bottom line. While sending out an invoice at the end of a transaction or following up on a late payment might seem like an afterthought, doing it quickly and accurately, all while keeping the customer happy, is not always an easy feat.
Offering an exemplary customer experience is a core part of getting transactions across the finish line, and CFOs are most certainly a part of the conversation. Here are three reasons CFOs play a critical role in the customer experience:
1. Better billing means better cash-flow
B2B billing is an interactive, two-way process that extends your brand’s customer experience. Finance teams must ensure that company invoices are consistent with brand voice and design while also keeping user experience and customer retention top of mind. Whether your company offers traditional credit sales, subscription billing, or pay-as-you-go, giving customers an easy-to-use digital platform where they can handle everything payment-related in one place is a critical component in shortening the cash conversion cycle and delivering a memorable customer experience.
2. The collections process must be cohesive with the customer journey
Collections can be an incredibly personal and often tedious process. Once invoices are sent out, it’s up to your company to get customers to pay on time without tarnishing precious client relationships. Given the current economic climate, dealing with accounts that are struggling to pay on time is inevitable and only increases the sensitivity around collections. Forwarding-thinking CFOs must take the right approach to sending collections and ensure the company’s follow-up process is cohesive with the rest of the customer journey.
For instance, finance teams who are thoughtful about the message, tone, and frequency of payment reminders, produce less customer churn and higher satisfaction. Executives looking to modernize their collections process might consider automating their accounts receivable to provide internal teams with insight into messaging and performance and customers with a more seamless payment experience.
3. Integration as the key to transformation
Many CFOs need a more comprehensive solution for managing payment processes that seamlessly connects and syncs with their core system of record. Integrating new and old systems that work in tandem across your company offers wider visibility into billing, collections, and payment information at the account level.
To support cross-functional CX initiatives, these platform integrations allow organizations to easily move data to and from different departments without losing valuable customer insights. By connecting accounts receivable systems to a company’s CRMs, ERPs, and other operational software, CFOs will have access to valuable data points from all aspects of the business that are vital to fixing and enhancing the overall customer journey.
A CX-oriented payment process is key in the B2B space
Payment is one of the last yet most critical steps in the customer lifecycle, which means it simply cannot be overlooked. From the invoice to payment, every aspect of your accounts receivable process should be centered around CX. Focusing on the customers, especially during times of high economic volatility, is one of the most valuable investments CFOs can take.
As the demand for a digitally-driven customer experience continues to grow, understanding how CX intersects with the accounting side of the business is critical for CFOs to truly deliver value to their company.
