Don’t Forget Your Invoice
Release Date:
There are many companies today that have embraced customer experience as a key strategic practice, working hard to put the customer first. But there’s often a part of the customer’s journey that is overlooked: when it’s time to pay the bill. Even in a recent episode, our host Pat Gibbons gave an example of a company dismissing customer feedback that identified invoicing as a pain point. So why do companies often adopt this mentality? Host Pat Gibbons welcomes Philip Rürup, founder and CEO of troy, a customer experience focused collections company based in Germany, for a discussion on why CX professionals often overlook the payment process, and why it’s worth their attention.
Learn more about troy at https://www.troy-bleiben.com/
Philip Rürup
troy
Connect with Philip
Highlights
It’s one of the most important touch points
“One of the interesting things that you just also mentioned in the introduction is that financial processes are mostly overlooked in the customer experience transformation., and that’s true basically from both perspectives: from the finance leader’s perspective, but also from the customer experience leader’s perspective. The finance leaders mostly, yeah, just lack the toolset to imagine what is possible. And the customer experience leaders typically just disregard this process as something that is more administrative, for example, or bureaucratic, and just doesn’t need special attention. But if you just make yourself aware, that is one of the most important touch points of a company.”
An easy way to differentiate
“…the interesting thing is that that customers are also just not used to a positive experience in [the payment] process and when your expectations are very low, it’s rather easy to overachieve. So what happens very, very often is also during the day is that, for example, my team receives positive feedback of a customer who just thanks us for treating them so well in the process. And the dynamics that happens in the team is obviously also quite positive because instead of just dealing with something very bureaucratic and very standardized, all of a sudden you are appreciated for your job and your contributions. So this creates a whole new positive culture.”
Transcript
Pat:00:00:01
One of the most common touch points on any customer’s journey is the payment process. And you know what? It can be pretty tricky and kind of sensitive. So why as CX leaders don’t we pay more attention to it?
Philip:00:00:14
Customer experience leaders typically just disregard this process as something that is more administrative and just doesn’t need special attention. It’s one of the most important touch points of a company. It’s so important because I think everyone receives an invoice.
Pat:00:00:31
Let’s look at customer experience in the financial process on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.
Announcer:00:00:46
The CX Leader Podcast is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at walkerinfo.com.
Pat:00:00:57
Hello everyone. I’m Pat Gibbons, host of this episode of The CX Leader Podcast. You know, it’s a great time to be a CX leader, and we explore topics and themes to help leaders like you develop great programs and deliver amazing experiences for your customers. You know, there are many companies today that have embraced customer experience as a key strategic practice, working hard to put the customer first, but there’s often a part of the customer journey that’s overlooked, and that’s when it’s time to pay the bill. Too often, customer experience leaders overlook feedback that may identify invoicing and other financial processes as a real pain point. So why is that? Well, we’re going to dig into that today because my guest has quite a bit of experience on this topic. Philip Rürup is a founder and CEO of troy, a customer experience focused collection company based in Germany. He’s also one of the authors in the popular Customer Experience five book that was recently published. Philip, welcome to The CX Leader Podcast.
Philip:00:02:09
Thanks, Pat, and thanks for having me.
Pat:00:02:11
Well, we’re glad to have you on. And, uh, first, I want to hear more about, uh, I have not yet gotten a copy of Customer Experience 5, but, uh, maybe you can explain a little bit about it. It’s obviously the fifth edition. They’ve been publishing these since 2019. Uh, but it’s a collaborative effort, and, uh, you are now part of it. Maybe tell us a little about that. And, uh, what what did you write?
Philip:00:02:36
Yeah, I’m happy to. Uh, so Customer Experience 5 is indeed the last, uh, the last edition now of this series. Um, and what, uh, the series actually does is inviting customer experience professionals from all over the world to contribute a chapter, uh, on what the editors call their current best thinking. Um, and, uh, this is super exciting, I believe. I mean, also the journey that I’ve been through as a first time author, uh, in that sense, uh, was was quite exciting. And seeing indeed, uh, I think we had authors from at least 12 or 15, uh, countries.
Pat:00:03:17
Yeah, yeah.
Philip:00:03:18
Um, and seeing how that really combines and grows into a work of, uh, yeah, collaborative ideas that, um, yeah, can stand for each other, but also always drive the idea of customer experience forward. Uh, that’s just super exciting.
Pat:00:03:35
Yeah, well, that’s, uh, quite an honor to be part of it. And, uh, it’s great that when people put together their best thinking on something and we can all learn from it. So, uh. Well, tell us a little bit about your background and your business. I think, you know, you’ve got kind of a fascinating area where you have focused on a key area of customer experience. And, uh, hopefully it’ll be good lessons for our people today.
Philip:00:03:59
Um, my personal background is I had a rather traditional corporate career. Uh, and I worked for a large, uh, servicing company, uh, that did a variety of different services, financial services and debt collection was one part of them. Marketing services, another part, um, factoring businesses. So financial services and uh, and uh, data businesses, for example. So quite a, quite a few of different areas. And I’ve seen that collection firsthand as someone, uh, yeah. Basically doing that business. Uh, I’ve seen it, uh, as a client when I was responsible for a buying receivables and factoring, uh, I’ve seen that collection as a provider in providing data, for example. And we are basically from all angles, it looked like this business could be done in a different way. Uh, and since I’m really passionate about customer experience, this is also the reason why we built troy in the first place. Uh, so the, the the reason to we exist. So the purpose, um, how we call it is, uh, that we want to make, uh, financial processes enjoyable. Uh, and that goes as far as making even debt collection processes enjoyable.
Pat:00:05:19
Yeah. No, I love that. And I actually saw a quote that you put on your LinkedIn profile. Maybe you can expand on it is “I support finance leaders becoming CX heroes in their organization.”
Philip:00:05:34
Yeah, indeed. One of the interesting things that you just also mentioned in the introduction is that financial processes are mostly overlooked in the customer experience transformation. Um, and that’s true basically from both, uh, perspectives, from the finance leader’s perspective, but also from the customer experience leader’s perspective. Um, the finance leaders, um, mostly, yeah, just lack the toolset, uh, to imagine what is possible. Um, and the customer experience leaders typically just disregard this process as something that is more administrative. Um, for example, or bureaucratic, uh, and just doesn’t need special attention. But if you just make yourself aware, that is one of the most important touch points of a company. Um, this is something it’s so important because I think everyone receives an invoice. Uh, statistically, 20% of customers receive a a reminder, uh, because they sometimes pay too late. Uh, and even in the debt collection part, uh, it’s still, let’s say, 2 to 5% of customers who are, who are handed over into that process. So it’s a super relevant touch point,
Pat:00:06:54
Yep.
Philip:00:06:55
Uh, that just needs focus.
Pat:00:06:57
Yeah.
Philip:00:06:58
Um, and when you actually tackle that topic, um, then, uh, every, every step you take is rewarded by very, um, tangible benefits. Um, so increased payment rates for example. Um, so reduced payment defaults. Um, but also really customers who enjoy the experience and employees who just appreciate to be part of an experience for the customer rather than just dealing with them transactionally…
Pat:00:07:36
Yeah.
Philip:00:07:37
…um, and just dealing with them bureaucratically.
Pat:00:07:39
Yeah, yeah, I kind of want to unpack a few things there. So getting behind the reason for overlooking it, you know, you mentioned it’s kind of an administrative process. Do they just kind of stay away from it because they say, well it everybody has to get a bill. It just goes out. What am I going to do as a customer experience professional to improve that process? Do they just see that there’s only one way to do it? Or, you know, I’m trying to kind of understand why. And I’ll say we as customer experience professionals, why why do we overlook this?
Philip:00:08:13
Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s a good question if you, if you look, look back at uh, for example, when and I think it was sometimes in the 70s, like if you, if you purchase a dishwasher some someone introduced their with a delivery, uh, you received some, some text, some letter or whatever and just confirm that you made the right decision because it was an important decision. And it probably also cost a lot of money. So understanding that this process is something to be taken care of is actually not not really surprising, but for some reason, uh, no one ever stopped looking at this invoice because it only feels that the invoice, it’s only purpose is to document what needs to be paid. Uh, instead of congratulating the customers that they made the right choice
Pat:00:09:03
Yeah.
Philip:00:09:04
Or welcoming, welcoming them, uh, as, uh, yeah, in your community or whatever. Uh, so it’s just really a, a very good moment to actually connect with the customer.
Pat:00:09:16
Right? Yeah. So instead of it just being a really, really basic effort in communication, it is an outreach opportunity. It’s a, you know, welcome opportunity. It’s a join us opportunity.
Philip:00:09:30
Absolutely.
Pat:00:09:31
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So what do you think are some of the most important things to consider during the payment process?
Philip:00:09:40
Yeah. I mean, it’s it can be as basic as just taking a look at the wording that’s currently being used in, in letters or emails or in the invoice itself. Um, and like, I’m pretty sure most of the customer experience leaders have never actually looked at such a, uh, such a document through the lens of customer experience. Uh, and I’m pretty sure it’s it’s quite eye opening if you do that for the first time. And, for example, look at a reminder, uh, and all of a sudden, you, you stumble across the wording and it feels awkward. It feels sometimes even threatening. And it’s very obvious that from a customer experience point of view, that’s not appreciated.
Pat:00:10:27
Right.
Philip:00:10:28
Um, so it can be as simple as, as doing that. It can be, uh, a bit more in, for example, incorporating behavioral economics, uh, in the process, uh, since you can really apply behavioral economics toolset, uh, the tool set, uh, to encourage, uh, customers to behave in a certain way. Um, and, uh, obviously it can also be technical, um, like, you can, uh, offer a variety of different payment methods. For example, you can offer payment flexibility for loyal customers, for example. Um, and that’s probably also one example where you can actually connect loyalty to payment terms. That’s something very
Pat:00:11:20
Right.
Philip:00:11:20
few companies do. Um, but it has a lot, a lot of opportunity to actually change this process for, for the better.
Pat:00:11:29
Yeah.
Pat:00:11:39
By the way, are you following the podcast through your favorite podcast provider like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube? If not, then you’re missing out on bonus content that we’re only releasing through those channels. Sometimes we speak with guests that have interesting side conversations worth sharing, so we’re releasing that as bonus content so that you don’t miss out on great advice from CX experts that are on the show. To listen to the bonus content, be sure to follow us through your favorite podcast service.
Pat:00:12:21
I assume. Obviously, you’ve already cited some kind of research and everything, but your your organization must understand kind of the emotional side of payment processes and invoices and kind of what the customer is going through. And, you know, again, as the company, they just say, this is just an administrative thing. I’m getting this out. But, uh, as CX professionals, we should always be putting ourselves in the customer’s shoes. What what do you find when you get into kind of the emotional side from the customer’s viewpoint?
Philip:00:12:54
You know. So basically our with troy, we started in the in the space of debt collection uh, and then basically moved forward and moved upstream, uh, into the earlier processes, um, and uh, in debt collection, typically customers are in a very fragile emotional state. Um, they, uh, they are embarrassed. Um, they, um, yeah, they are just worried about the process. They worry is someone, someone showing up to at at my doorstep, for example.
Pat:00:13:27
Mhm. Yeah.
Philip:00:13:27
They worry, uh, what does it do to my credit score, uh, stuff like that. And so they are really anxious, uh, to take care of that. And the common image of a customer, uh, in debt collection is that they intentionally did not pay. Uh, but, uh, honestly, that’s that’s very rarely the case. Uh, typically it’s circumstances changing privately, for example, or just, uh, getting, uh, difficulties with too many bank accounts or too many credit credit cards
Pat:00:14:01
Yeah.
Philip:00:14:01
And just losing track of that, um, or whatever, being becoming a parent and therefore don’t not not having the time to focus on those mundane things.
Pat:00:14:14
Getting around to pay your bill. Right?
Philip:00:14:16
Yeah,
Pat:00:14:16
Yeah.
Philip:00:14:17
Indeed. So there’s there’s tons of reasons out there why customers are in that situation. And this also explains the complexity of the emotional state. Um, and therefore, just to give you an example, transparency for us matters a lot in that process. So giving customers really an overview over the situation, what happened before, what will happen next. Um, but also of, of communication, for example, uh, this is super crucial. Uh, and um, yeah, I guess indeed, um, something to be taken care of or into account. And there’s one one other thing I want to mention. Um, and this is also I mean, you might have seen that in my, in my, um, part of the book. Um, we just have to be aware that there’s statistically there’s very many people out there with language difficulties.
Pat:00:15:16
Okay.
Philip:00:15:16
Like, sometimes they have problems reading, sometimes it’s just a complicated, complicated to to understand yet difficult wording. And if you look at the wording that’s being used in financial processes, it’s typically bureaucratic. Uh, it’s typically it tries to solve something that feels necessary from a compliance or legal perspective. Um, and with that, it, um, yeah, almost every time it gets more complicated than it needs to be. And this really sometimes also just overwhelms people, uh, and therefore leads to the situation in the first place, that people can’t pay their bills or won’t pay their, their bills, for example.
Pat:00:16:04
Right. So, um, I know you just touched on it, uh, at the beginning of our conversation. There are benefits to. So. Okay, taking some of the tips that you’ve already mentioned, you know, language, understanding of their situation, emotional state, you know, all of those things. And designing the process that, uh, in doing that right, there will be additional benefits for the company. And whether that’s they pay faster or the customers are happier, they give them more business. I mean, maybe you can elaborate on some of those.
Philip:00:16:37
Yeah, I’d have to. Um, so in the debt collection space that we are, we are in, um, performance is very transparent and performance is typically measured primarily in payment rates. So how much do you collect and how fast do people pay? Um, so these are the first KPIs you are measured by. Um, and typically companies are compared in their in their performance in, in benchmarks. So we also have very transparent insights, uh, of how strong the impact is on an of an improved customer experience on these KPIs. Uh, and ten out of ten times, uh, we had the highest recovery rates, um, uh, of, of those claims, uh, in the process. And that basically means that the more effort you spend into creating a positive customer experience, the more it will also be rewarded by your customers, uh, with positive payment behavior. Um, and the last thing that happens is that customers even pay happily. It sounds strange.
Pat:00:17:48
Yes it does. Please explain.
Philip:00:17:50
And the interesting thing is that that customers are also just not used to a positive experience in that process. Uh, and when your expectations are very low, uh, it’s rather easy to overachieve. Uh, so what happens very, very often is also during the day is that, for example, my team receives positive feedback of a customer who just thanks us for treating them so well in the process. And the dynamics that happens in the team is obviously also quite positive. Uh, because instead of just dealing with something very bureaucratic and very standardized, all of a sudden you are appreciated for your job and your contributions. Um, so this creates a whole new positive culture. Uh, also in the team. Um, so these are a few of the benefits, um, that, uh, that you can definitely expect when you tackle a topic like that.
Pat:00:18:49
Yeah. And, uh, you know, you made an important point that I kind of want to make sure customer experience leaders didn’t miss. And that is there’s a pretty low standard in this area. So as CX leaders, we’re always looking for ways to differentiate and and have a better experience. Here’s one that doesn’t just apply to a small group of customers. It applies to everybody. You know, look at your, uh, your process for collection. Make it, you know, uh, state of the art. And, you know, all of a sudden you’ve got something that maybe some of your competitors don’t. And I think that’s kind of interesting point.
Philip:00:19:27
And indeed, it’s got to be going to be appreciated.
Pat:00:19:30
Yeah.
Philip:00:19:30
Uh, that’s. And there’s, there’s just tons of ways you can indeed do that. You can go even as far as using humor for certain certain situations. Uh, like we had a we had a very challenging case where, um, a company, uh, had very small claims and this is rather untypical, that he actually tried to collect them in debt collection. Um, and we only had emails. So that was just one channel. Uh, and what we actually did is, uh, you know, we’re a bit creative, uh, and basically wrote to the customers from, uh, in the tone of voice of our bot. So our digital colleague is Leela, and she wrote, isn’t, uh, nobody here in, uh, at troy has recognized that you have been handed over to debt collection, so that let’s just try to keep it between us. If you pay now, you can get a discount on the fees. Uh, and this, it just gives you an opportunity to really, uh. Yeah. Surprise in a positive way. Uh, and, uh, in that sense, then also get the positive feedback that you want to get and the positive also loyalty impact that’s, that’s going to follow.
Pat:00:20:41
They are. Well, and I assume, like every other industry, uh, technology plays a big role. Where do you see this? Uh, where do you see it going? Either from technology or the human aspect? Um, what’s the future of this type of process?
Philip:00:20:59
You know. Indeed. I mean, it’s kind of self-serving if I say that because Troy is a fintech and therefore we perceive ourselves to be a technology company. So have a technology first, uh, approach to solve these kinds of topics. Um, but for certain things, technology is just so essential. And just give you one example, I told you that the transparency about the process is super relevant for customers. And we offer, for example, an omnichannel post box to the customer. So the customers in a post box sees the entire communication thread across all channels. Whether we send an email, they send a text message, we send them a letter, or we chatted on the on the phone,
Pat:00:21:49
Yeah.
Philip:00:21:50
Uh, all of that in chronological order. And this can only be solved with technology. Uh, so therefore, uh, this is, uh, this is, I believe, super important. Um, and indeed so, so when we think about where, where are we headed in the customer experience space, but also, uh, we in, in, in the financial services space, we’ve just discovered a very interesting way to utilize the large language models like ChatGPT, uh, for answering customer emails.
Pat:00:22:21
Yeah.
Philip:00:22:22
And the benefits of that are just, uh, incredible. Um, and it’s going to take email to a completely new level of customer experience. Um, so technology plays a huge role in the continuous improvement of the, of the customer experience.
Pat:00:22:39
Yeah. All right. Well, we have come to that point in the broadcast where we ask every guest that we’ve had on The CX Leader Podcast to share one tip. We call it our take home value. So one tip and ideally something that our listeners can put to use right away. So Philip, what is your take home value today?
Philip:00:22:59
No, but, um, I just want to reiterate what I said earlier. Um, I believe one of the most easy things to do, uh, and also most impactful things, uh, is if you take a close look into your communication, uh, financial services, communication, um, the invoice, uh, and, uh, the reminders, look at the texts that are being used. Look at the layout. It’s going to be very obvious what to do. Uh, and it’s going to be very rewarding to do it.
Pat:00:23:30
That is excellent advice. I have a feeling that if we have a number of listeners that take you up on that advice, they will look at what is sent out and say, oh my gosh, how did I miss this? So?
Philip:00:23:44
I also. And indeed, as part of that, I believe we can also make the world a better place. Um, I think that’s something everyone in customer experience strives for in their core.
Pat:00:23:57
Right. Make it a more human experience. Very good. All right. Well, Philip Rürup is the founder and CEO of troy and is a contributing author to Customer Experience 5. Philip, thanks for being on The CX Leader Podcast.
Philip:00:24:13
Thanks for having me, Pat.
Pat:00:24:15
Okay. And if someone wants to continue the conversation, okay. To reach out to you on LinkedIn, is that right?
Philip:00:24:22
Good. Absolutely. That Would be…
Pat:00:24:24
Great.
Philip:00:24:24
…I would look I look forward to that.
Pat:00:24:26
Good, good. And I suggest to anybody listening, go out to Amazon today and pick up a copy of Customer Experience 5. And while you’re at it, pick up 4, 3, 2 and 1 as well. I think you’ll find a lot of good, uh, a lot of good content. So and if you want to talk about anything you heard on this podcast or how Walker can help your business’s customer experience, feel free to email us at podcast@walkerinfo.com. Remember to give The CX Leader Podcast a rating through your podcast service and give us a review, because your feedback will help us improve the show and deliver the best possible value to you, our listeners. Check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com. You can follow the show. You’ll see all our previous 300 plus episodes. You’ll see some podcast series and also a link to our blog which we update regularly. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We’re an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success, and you can read more about us at walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening and remember, it’s a great time to be a CX leader. We’ll see you next time.
Tags: Pat Gibbons Philip Rürup troy payment process invoicing invoices