Three areas of your business that are ‘Easy Picking’ for better efficiency

Do you feel as if your business is moving in slow motion? Does it feel like you’re putting in a lot of effort and getting very little in return? If so, it’s possible there are chokeholds and bottlenecks in critical areas of your organisation.

The sooner you address them, the better.

Customer service

Efficiency is the heartbeat of successful customer service. Don’t believe it? Consider that organisations can grow their revenues by as much as 8 percent above the market by prioritising smoother customer experiences.

Or what about the fact that 60 percent of customers have stopped doing business with a brand due to poor customer experience and would likely do the same with yours?

If you want to keep your customers happy (and coming back for more), you must prioritise exceptional customer service. This means reducing friction, speeding up response times, and guiding your customers through your customer service workflow without a hitch.

When it comes to efficiency within the customer service arm of your business, there are some analytics and metrics you should focus on, including first response time, first contact resolution, time to resolution, customer satisfaction score, and customer effort score.

You can enhance your numbers in these areas by providing proactive support – reaching out to customers and offering to help before you’re even prompted to do so. You can also automate parts of the customer service workflow so that there are fewer manual “hand-offs,” which slow things down. Better routing of requests to the right team members is another important step.

Accounts payable

Accounts payable is another one of those hidden aspects of an organisation that can almost always enjoy better efficiency. And unless you’ve spent time studying your accounts payable workflow, you probably don’t realise it.

There are two major areas where inefficiencies emerge within accounts payable. For starters, there’s the time factor (spending lots of man-hours processing invoices for payment). Secondly, there’s the money (missing opportunities to save with discounts and/or dealing with penalties and late fees).

“Automating slow and outdated processes with accounts payable technology will save you time and money that you could spend on other business areas,” explains Medius, a leader in accounts payable software and automation.

• Start by identifying the problem areas. Where are the bottlenecks? Are you paying late fees?
• Next, determine your list of needs. (Is time or money your biggest issue?)
• Finally, select the right solutions for improving efficiency (like implementing automation in the form of software).

Improving your accounts payable processes can save you time and money, while also strengthening relationships with suppliers and various business partners. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Email marketing

Believe it or not, email marketing is another big problem area. Here are several ways you can boost your efficiency:

• Segment email lists. Most businesses have at least two or three different customer demographics or “profiles.” And even within the same profiles, customers get on your email list via different avenues. (One might land on your customer after making a purchase, while another might enter your ecosystem after downloading a free PDF.) It’s important that you segment your email list according to different factors so that you can efficiently blast customised emails that are tailored to each individual group.
• Ensure mobile-friendliness. The majority of people now check their email on a mobile device. And 71 percent of people delete emails immediately if they don’t display correctly on their device. With this in mind, be sure to write and design emails in a mobile friendly way.
• Develop better subject lines. There’s nothing more inefficient than writing emails that don’t get opened. And no single factor impacts an email’s open rate more than the subject line. Focus on writing more compelling subject lines that leverage desire and curiosity.

By focusing on smart delivery of the right emails to the right inboxes, you can get better results and spend less time dealing with issues like low open rates, poor deliverability, and confusion.

Put your business on a better path

Everyone wants to focus on better profit margins, higher quality products, and sleeker advertising campaigns – all of which are good and healthy – but sometimes the fastest route to improvement is by rethinking the fundamentals. By prioritising efficiency as it relates to customer service, accounts payable, and email marketing, you can reorient your business and put it on a path to greater success.