A new beginning for Novuna Business Cash Flow was automating their collections process with Esker’s Collections Management solution. As a result they have successfully boosted employee morale and client relationships.

2023 is already in full swing with the weeks flying by, and small signs that Spring is on the way. I do enjoy the changing of the seasons, and that it brings a different mood and outlook to life. New Year and then Spring always feel like a new start, a clean page in life to make what you want of it. Like so many, I always start a new year with all good intentions. My New Year’s Resolutions (New Beginnings as I prefer to call them) were not so different to previous years, with the annual intent of consuming fewer sweet treats being the first on the list! After admitting to myself that my New Beginnings had not been successful so far, I’m now giving up sweet treats for Lent!

I always find it bizarre that in the working environment I’m constantly reviewing my progress against my targets, (can you tell I’m in Sales?), but in my personal life this is not something I prioritise. Each week at Esker we meet as a team to discuss how the previous week has progressed, what had worked well, and areas that need improving or need more attention in the future. We also have our monthly company meeting with reflection time, celebrating the wins in each team and as a company, then looking forward to how we can strengthen each area. So why do I not do this with my personal New Beginnings?

One of our customers, Novuna Business Cash Flow, found that the system they used for collections was challenging, difficult to navigate, and that the ability to run reports was particularly frustrating. Team morale was low due to how time consuming the way of working was and the potential for mistakes. And so Novuna Business Cash Flow set off on a journey to find a new way of working – a new beginning. After looking at several different systems they implemented Esker’s Collections solution. A great example of reviewing their processes, highlighting an area for improvement, and then finding the best resolution for the issue.

When embarking on a project like automation, it’s understandably a time of apprehension and trepidation. We so easily stick to the routines we know, building up daily habits, whether these be good or bad. In my case with my sweet treats, bad habits! It’s harder at times to implement a new beginning, but often once we have changed our routine and then embraced the change we know we want or need to make, the results speak for themselves.

Credit Manager at Novuna Business Cash Flow, said:
“We have seen benefits to our clients as well as ourselves. Strategically, we can liaise with them to help them make better business decisions by giving them detailed information about their supplier queries.”

Esker’s Collections Management solution can bring numerous benefits to your business including:

• Increased collections efficiency by automating low value tasks such as daily reminders, prioritisation and giving collectors one system to access all invoice related information and documents
• Improvements in collaboration and dispute resolution by easily assigning tasks to stakeholders, and sharing reports to make the dispute or invoice related issue easier to achieve and monitor.
• Better visibility on process and performance with customisable dashboards and reports displaying real-time KPI’s to monitor collections performance and therefore be able to adjust strategy accordingly for even greater efficiency.
• Improved customer relationships via a customer portal with 24/7 access enabling customers to retrieve all the information they need.
• Reduced DSO/optimised working capital with all the above contributing to accelerate the cash collections cycle.

When embarking upon their automation journey, Novuna Business Cash Flow had set out a number of objectives they wanted to achieve:

• Increase flexibility
• Facilitate reporting for clients
• Invest in market-leading AI technology
• Provide multiple access both internally and for clients

And since the implementation, they have seen the following highlights:

• Immense boost in team morale
• Control over the solution to create bespoke filters
• Excellent KPI analysis
• In system messaging – full audit trail of activity
• Controlling bounced emails via standard reports
• Ease of solution navigation, workload distribution & escalation

The team at Novuna Business Cash Flow have said that they feel they are at the start of a journey, and although the process is greatly improved they are still learning about functions within Esker’s Collections solution, reviewing the progress, and adjusting where they feel they can benefit with further opportunities.

“Motivation of my team is through the roof — Esker is very simple to understand. It also empowers them to make decisions based on each of their clients rather than a top-down approach. This is making them much more self-sufficient giving me the opportunity to look at a more strategic view of the business.”
Credit Manager, Novuna Business Cash Flow

And so, they have a new beginning, that is creating new routines and habits to improve in so many different areas. Results are being seen, which helps to make the transition from old routines and habits that much easier. The research that Novuna Business Cash Flow put in at the start of the journey has paid off, and for us here at Esker we are thrilled at the difference our solution has made to the whole team at Novuna Business Cash Flow. We will still reflect though to make sure we can learn from the process for our future clients.

And so finally for me, as we enter Spring and the new shoots of new beginnings are starting to appear in the garden, I need to set my personal objectives. Then research the best system to achieve my objectives, and then record the highlights to keep me on track. I’m sure each week there will be areas for improvement and old habits are going to be hard to break. But if I sow the seeds now, who knows what might grow over the summer – or in my case shrink with less sweet treats! Let’s just hope I don’t have a poor performing weekend in April with the temptation of Easter Eggs!

Johanne Musson

Johanne is an Internal Account Manager for Esker UK. She has been part of the Esker family since 2022.

Read more insights from Johanne Musson

Customers are the life blood of every business, which is something we very much believe in, here at Esker. In fact, customer satisfaction is a part of our company philosophy. Our Customer Experience (CX) Team are key in making our customers feel Valued, Understood and Engaged.

A Change in Consumer Attitudes

The pandemic served to not only accelerate underlying customer service trends in a matter of weeks, it was also a catalyst for many B2C consumers — 50% to be precise₁ — to hit the reset button on their purpose and priorities. This rapid shift in perspective not only affected their personal experiences (i.e., B2C), it also informed their professional ones (i.e., B2B). For example, speed, personal connection and digital competency are no longer hoped for when making purchasing decisions, they’re expected. These examples say it all:

• Approximately 3 in 4 younger B2B customers (i.e., Millennials and Gen Z) are willing to pay a premium for proactive and predictive customer support₂.
• A 2021 study revealed that B2B customers are 37% more likely to purchase more from companies that listen and incorporate service feedback₃.
• A paltry 17% of companies claim their digital experience (DX) is ahead of customer expectations, while 24% state their DX is lagging behind modern expectations₄.

Having worked with 50% of our customers for over 10 years, Esker appreciates that our customers want to ensure that their own customers are satisfied with the service they receive.

Esker’s Customer Enquiry Management Solution is a digital assistant for the customer service inbox

Esker’s Customer Enquiry Management solution works using our AI engine, classifying emails into different categories such as pricing query, availability, status request and product questions specific to each customer. It will then route these enquiries by email to the relevant person or department. It provides a dashboard displaying KPI’s such as enquiries by category, enquiries by customer, enquiries by date, and trend analysis for items such as price requests. The Customer Enquiry Management solution also integrates with our Order Management solution, routing orders to that solution from the customer service email inbox.

Address Enquiries Faster – No more messy inbox folders! Classify, route & answer customer requests quickly & accurately thanks to automation & AI-driven technology.
Build Better Relationships – Give your customers what they expect — a quick, consistent & helpful response. The end result? They keep doing business with you!
Be Proactive, Not Reactive – From strategic response & routing to real-time KPIs, Esker equips your team with the tools needed to provide a more proactive, personalised CX.

One of our customers, Palmer Holland, are growing rapidly, and recognised that 4 hours a day spent going through customer enquiry emails was not sustainable. Palmer Holland wanted to maintain their growth and develop further growth, but without having to grow headcount, and so decided to automate with Esker’s Customer Enquiry Management solution.

Palmer Holland has seen transformation benefits that are contributing to significant time savings and helping to propel company growth. After automating customer enquiries, routing emails now only takes four hours a week, as opposed to four hours a day. This can be attributed to the fact that Esker’s quick-learning AI Engine is classifying enquiries correctly over 90% of the time.

Aiza Toor, Customer Service Manager at Palmer Holland, said, “It takes maybe a second or two to validate an enquiry now. The time savings is one of the biggest benefits.”

Investing in the Customer Experience

So why spend money automating when costs are rising in so many areas? It is a good question, but we need to go back to the start and remember that customers are the life blood of a business. Reputation can easily be damaged with poor customer service, so improving the customer experience should ensure that you are retaining those customers and therefore increasing revenues. Rather than triaging email enquiries, CSR’s can spend their time more effectively addressing customers enquiries faster. Also, by analysing customer enquiries, areas for improvement can be identified quicker.

You can read more about Esker’s Customer Enquiry Management solution on our website or in our new eBook.

Alternatively, do get in touch and I’d be very happy to provide you with a demo.

_1. Accenture, Life Reimagined: Mapping the motivations that matter for todays’ consumers. 2021.
_2. Accenture, End-to-Endless Customer Service Research. 2021.
_3. Accenture, End-to-Endless Customer Service Research. 2021.
_4. Adobe and Econsultancy, 2022 Digital Trends: B2B in Focus. 2022

Johanne Musson

Johanne is an Internal Account Manager for Esker UK. She has been part of the Esker family since 2022.

Read more insights from Johanne Musson

I wonder if, many years ago, the way of collecting payments from customers involved someone riding their bicycle from customer to customer to ensure payment was received in full? Or have I just been watching too much Call The Midwife?

Even now Collections Management can still be a long, complex and frustrating process. Unpaid invoices, late payments, time wasted on collection calls and emails are a cyclist’s equivalent of pedalling squares¹; punctures, gear issues and the ultimate pain of falling off your bike!

For Trek Bicycle, the largest bicycle company in the US, the Global Director of Financial Services, Andrew St Clair, said, “We didn’t have a standardised collections tool before Esker. Everyday tasks, like sending reminder letters, were all done manually… there was no real consistency in our process.”

With automated Collections Management, Trek Bicycle achieved:

• Reduced past-due percentage by 4%
• Improved productivity; several staff members were able to be reallocated to more business-critical positions
• Higher satisfaction; customers now have access to a self-service portal to make payments, manage preferences and more
• Reduced Days Sales Outstanding (DSO)
• Improved collaboration; users can now go into Esker, choose an invoice and assign tasks to other departments (e.g., cash application, etc.)
• Enhanced visibility; customisable monthly management reports can be accessed directly from the dashboard

Automating the management of the collections process is the cycling equivalent of souplesse²; to cycle with high cadence and ease. Or perhaps, even, for those of us who are slightly lazy, a ride on the back of a tandem with someone else pedalling extremely fast in front, or an electric bike?

Summed up by Andrew St Clair at Trek Bicycle, “The discipline that Esker drives in the credit and collections process is phenomenal. In my 20-plus years, it’s the best product I’ve ever used based on its simplicity and ease of navigating.”

You can find out more about Esker’s Collections Management solution here. Or alternatively, I’d love to hear from you, and to help you on your journey to Collections success.

_{¹ Pedalling squares means the cyclist is floundering, pushing a big gear with no élan and generally struggling, https://cyclinguphill.com/cycling-terms-explained/
² Souplesse means to pedal at a high cadence and with seeming ease, https://cyclinguphill.com/cycling-terms-explained/}

Johanne Musson

Johanne is an Internal Account Manager for Esker UK. She has been part of the Esker family since 2022.

Read more insights from Johanne Musson