It’s no secret that the way people shop has changed over the years and increasingly so more recently. Anyone who has shopped online has come to expect a certain level of service – this has now spilled over into our business lives.
As business buyers, we want our vendors to provide us with the same level of “Amazon-like” service we experience in our personal lives. Providing a customer self-service experience offers buyers many conveniences:
- Do their own research on products of interest
- Only speak with someone when they want
- Buy what they want to buy without being “sold”
- Not at the mercy of store hours
- Control their own shopping destiny
- And more…
This is also good news for vendors. Providing online, self-serve capabilities to customers can significantly reduce administrative overhead. Look at it from an Accounts Receivable perspective – how your customers are paying. Think about the time your staff spends answering questions like:
- I can’t find my invoice, can you resend it?
- How much do I owe?
- What’s the status of my order?
- Can I pay by credit card?
- And many other routine, low value interactions
Providing self-serve capabilities that address these questions isn’t as difficult or expensive as you may think. For organizations that aren’t ready to make a full leap to a web store, Click-to-Pay and a self-serve Customer Portal offer a great opportunity to liberate your staff from time spent on routine questions like those mentioned above, improve cashflow, and provide customers the autonomy they want.
The Customer Portal is a set and forget tool for organizations that use Sage 300. Click-to-Pay is just one of many benefits for both merchants and their customers.
Click-to-Pay provides the ability for you to include a link on an invoice document or in the body of an email with a “Click here to pay” link or button. No login required. When your customer clicks on the link they arrive at the Click-to-Pay screen that is pre-populated with the document information: amount, dates, invoice number, etc. The customer account and invoice are verified directly from Sage 300 and checked to be certain that the invoice is still open and unpaid. Based on what your merchant account supports, payment options of credit card, electronic check, or ACH, will be available.
Secure online transactions: Customers have the option to enter their desired payment method, based on what your merchant account supports, to pay their invoice. The payment process is then transferred to your payment processor to maintain PCI compliance. The Customer Portal will support all major payment processors, and where we may have not already integrated, we just need to know who your processor is to determine what is needed for the integration.
Upgrades: The Customer Portal is specifically designed for Sage 300. A Sage 300 user license is required to allow uninterrupted communication using Sage 300 technology and business logic. Some major benefits this methodology offers are that communication is real-time and compatibility with future Sage 300 releases is guaranteed.
Click-to-Pay is just one component of the more comprehensive Customer Portal for Sage 300. It can be used on its own or with the full Portal. The Customer Portal is an affordable way to give your customers the self-serve experience they are looking for while streamlining your AR processes, improving cashflow, and reducing your administrative overhead. A Customer Portal offers many self-serve capabilities including access to all documents like invoices, orders, payments, credit notes and more. You control which documents are available to view and re-print. Customers can even place orders with Quick Order Entry. Set up is quick, easy, and very affordable.
To learn more, watch this recorded demo or feel free to select a convenient time on my calendar to discuss your specific situation.