Customer satisfaction is often times the number one driver in competitive advantage and profitability, the post-sales customer experience is of growing importance to an organization.
Accounts receivable management could considerably improve customer satisfaction and retention. It is your last communication with the customer on a sale, and it could have a huge impact on whether or not they choose to do business with you again.
The easier you make the process for your customer, the happier they will be. Good accounts receivable management will make their lives much easier, help them remember to pay up for outstanding invoices and fetch you repeat business.
So, as an organization looking to improve all facets of customer experience, some ways in which credit and A/R could contribute to improving customer experience are:
1.Customer self-service for invoicing and payments
2.Customer portal to dispute invoices
3.Automated customer communication on invoices, past-due A/R, credit limits utilized, and deductions

2.1. Self-service Invoicing & Payments

Electronic billing reduces delivery time, paper costs, and manual hours dealing with cash allocation, disputes, and collections by automatically reconciling payments with your ERP system and reducing the scope of errors in invoicing and billing.
The upshot? Direct impact on the cash conversion cycle in the form of reduced ADD by as much as 50% for companies with a high invoice automation rate (Fig. 5).

2.2. Portal To Dispute Invoices

Invoice disputes raised through an email, fax, or traditional mail is a time-consuming, costly, and convoluted process that dents customer experience.
Simplifying the dispute resolution process will go a long way in ensuring customer loyalty.
Such documents are easily lost and difficult to keep track of. Traditional dispute documents are difficult to reproduce, keeping a record involves a large amount of file space, and finding a particular document may be time-consuming and difficult.
Moreover, reconciling them with transaction records in your ERP is a manually intensive and error-prone task that further delays downstream processes of cash allocation, deductions, and collections management.
To maximize simplicity and customer convenience, you could provide an online portal for customers to log in and dispute invoices that they do not agree to, need clarification on, or find incorrect.
Customers could provide all supporting documents and any additional comments for the analyst to work off a single platform, get rid of multiple backs and forth communication exchanges, and expedite payment. Not only does it improve the ease of doing business with you thereby reducing customer churn, but also streamlines processes, improves audibility with an online trail, and reduces manual hours dealing with cash allocation, disputes, and collections.

2.3. Automated Customer Communication

It is important to communicate with your customers throughout the purchase process. Excellent customer service is a great way of luring new customers and retaining existing ones. If your competition is matching you with regards to price and products, then exceptional customer service could help you pull away from the pack.
The order-to-cash department with customer touchpoints on order, invoicing, credit, deductions and collections could have a huge impact on whether or not they choose to do business with you again. Thus, it is imperative to maintain an open, productive communication channel between the A/R team and the customers at all stages, be it for payment reminders, collection correspondence, dispute resolution or customer support.
Manual correspondence is the biggest hurdle in providing visibility to customers on all things A/R.
Fortunately, there are technological solutions that could automate the correspondence process, making it easier for you to keep in close communication with customers with ease and convenience.
For example, you could automate payment reminders 15 days before the deadline, and send this reminder through various communication channels (e-mail, post, SMS). Most customers would appreciate a reminder that the date is approaching, not just receive a notice from you when the bill is past due.

2.3. Automated Customer Communication

Automated collection correspondence increases efficiency and yields better results. It allows teams to automatically send collection letters in multiple languages and currencies.
Automatic escalation allows the appropriate messages to be sent to your customers based on delinquency.
While the convenience, time-saving, and simplicity of automated correspondence is clear, it is by no means a substitute for human presence in your business. It is a way to shift focus away from low-value-added work and bureaucratic tasks and replace with those that result in stronger customer loyalty and lower overall costs.
“According to a recent credit and collections performance study conducted by the Hackett Group, 71% of dunning notices are automated in the top performing organizations as opposed to just 8% in the peer group”