More and more of our busy lives are moving online, with apps, websites, and services designed to let us accomplish almost anything from our smartphones or web browsers. This shift to digital transformation and self-service can be a great time-saver, and puts us in control, but it’s certainly not for everyone. There are still plenty of people out there who don’t want to read an email, click on a link, or open an app to get stuff done—especially in the older generation.
The thing is, some of those people are likely to be your customers and you need to get them to pay your invoices. Forcing them to view and deal with your invoice online isn’t always the best answer—if you want to create a great experience that keeps your customers happy, you need a better solution. That’s why we’re delighted to announce our new invoice mailing service.
Let’s explore the advantages of providing more traditional, paper invoices to your customers and why you should add an invoice mailing service to your billing services.
The Advantages of an Invoice Mailing Service for Your Customers
As always, the most important reason for mailing out paper invoices is that it gives you more options with your customers. That’s good, as it results in a better customer experience, which means they’re more likely to come back to your business. After all, you know it’s much less expensive to keep hold of an existing customer than to acquire a new one. In fact, customer acquisition is five times more expensive than customer retention!
Some Companies Still Use Legacy Systems for Invoice Processing
It might be hard to believe, but some of your business customers may not be set up for digital invoices. Upgrading accounts payable systems can be time-consuming and expensive, especially in larger organizations—many companies still rely on paper copies to process their payments. In fact, almost half of all payments between businesses in the U.S. still rely on paper checks.
If your business customer isn’t set up to receive invoices electronically, then getting them as a customer might rely on you sending them paper invoices. No-one wants to turn down a lucrative client, so mailing your invoices could be the best choice. With Biller Genie, that choice comes as standard.
Some Customers Don’t Want to Deal with Electronic Invoices
Just as some of your business customers might prefer paper copies of invoices, the same is true of individuals. That’s especially true if they’re of an older generation—your customer base probably isn’t just made up of millennials or people from Gen X or Z.
It’s not surprising that some people distrust giving their payment information online. There’s been plenty of publicity about data breaches, and that means people have genuine concerns about the storage and safety of their information. It’s much harder to hack a hard copy!
Combine that with areas like personal privacy, protecting payment information, hard drive crashes, or the internet being down, and there’s a good argument that in some cases, traditional is best. Ultimately, it’s about the payment options you give to your customers—that means more trust, more loyalty, and more repeat business.
It Can Be Easier for Customers to Keep Track of Paper Invoices
It’s much easier for a customer to overlook an email, app, or browser notification than it is to ignore an invoice sitting on their desk. It’s a constant reminder that the invoice needs to be paid, and keeps you front-of-mind. Some customers also like paper invoices because they’re harder to lose and easier to file. Biller Genie gives you branded, hard copies and sends them to your customers with minimal fuss or overhead from you.
The Advantages of an Invoice Mailing Service for Your Business
Of course, mailing out paper invoices is good for your company too, especially because Biller Genie automates so much of the process—well, you’d expect us to make it easy, wouldn’t you?
Some Businesses Prefer to Mail Out Paper Copies of Invoices
Just as some of your customers prefer receiving paper invoices, you might prefer to send them out. If you’re a more traditional type of business, or you’re not a huge fan of online invoicing and processing, that makes sense. You could get more reliable payments from paper invoicing than electronic, depending on who your customers are.
Automatic Invoice Mailing Means You Can Focus On What’s Important
We work hard to ensure Biller Genie removes much of the busy work and admin from your billing, and our invoice mailing service is no different. That matters, because as a business owner, you should focus on what you do best—growing your business. That’s why we made the mailing service super-easy to use. Here’s how it works:
- Opt-in to our invoice mailing service through your Biller Genie customer portal.
- Raise your invoice as normal.
- Decide if you want to send gentle reminders to your customers.
- We have seven optional reminders you can send, each of these can be turned on or off as needed:
- New invoice
- Invoice updated
- Paid
- Upcoming payment (3 days before payment is due)
- Payment due
- Payment past due (every 5 days after the due date until paid)
- Upcoming late fee (3 days before the due date)
- You can set each reminder at different intervals and customize them to your specific needs.
- All invoices are completely customizable to your brand.
- Biller Genie is your virtual assistant—you create the invoice, and (for a small fee,) Biller Genie does the rest automatically—there is no additional work required from you.
- Biller Genie prints out the invoice or reminder, puts it in an envelope, and mails it out to your customers.
Our new invoice mailing feature came about directly from working with you, our customers. Many of you told us that you want the option to send tangible, hard copies of invoices over the electronic versions. In fact, some of you said you’d prefer to opt-out of sending electronic invoices entirely and only send traditional paper versions.
That’s why we’re very happy to offer this service to you—we hope it reduces your overhead, helps you get paid faster, and lets you get back to growing your business.