Why Your Invoices Matter
What do your invoices have in common with your website, your helpdesk and your technicians? They all serve as touchpoints with your customers — among the few recur - ring ones you have if you’re a small or medium-sized MSP — and when they’re done right, they’re a great opportunity to reinforce the value you deliver and strengthen the customer experience.
Consider these four best practices for creating professional invoices that show existing and potential customers alike that you’re the right MSP for their business:
1. Accuracy
2. Professionalism
3. Timeliness
4. Service
1. Accuracy
As you grow your managed services business, an accurate invoice is one of the more important keys to building trust with your customers. (Conversely, an inaccurate invoice can spark distrust in your services and your practice.) One of the best ways to ensure accuracy is by automating as much of the billing process as possible. For example, if you can fully integrate your technicians’ field reports and your helpdesk processes with your billing platform, you can deliver accuracy and clarity for every item listed on your invoices.2. Professionalism
A clear and easy-to-understand invoice tailored to each customer’s needs allows you to always put your best foot forward. Rather than using a ‘one-size-fits-all’ template across your entire customer base, your invoices should be as simple or as detailed as necessary to reflect the different billing models used by each particular customer, whether that’s hourly, on retainer or fully managed services. This way, you can bill your customers in the way they like best — improving satisfaction while showing a deeper understanding of their business needs.
3. Timeliness
Nobody likes to get a bill? That’s not entirely true. Customers expect to be billed but they expect that bill to arrive at a specific time and date. When customers know they’ll be billed promptly, it’s easier for them to track costs and plan expenses. A late invoice, on the other hand, can feel like an unexpected expense — and that leads to a negative customer experience. When your ticketing, helpdesk and invoicing tools are working together, previously manual steps can be eliminated, helping you generate and send invoices faster and more efficiently… and the faster your customers receive their invoices, the sooner you get paid.
4. Service
You should always be ready to answer questions after the invoice has been sent to help build and grow the relationship. An integrated ticketing, helpdesk and invoicing system makes it easier to respond quickly to billing questions making you look professional and that you are on top of things.
An Easier Way to Bill Customers
There are quite a few cloud-based service management platform for creating support tickets, scheduling technicians and generating professional invoices — everything you need to deliver quality service to your customers. These integrated, customizable billing process saves you time while increasing the accuracy of your invoices. You can also generate multiple invoices simultaneously for faster, more efficient billing — and then export your invoices directly to your preferred accounting software.
