A customer billing is any kind of business event where a business collects money from a customer for goods or services provided. Lots of companies have customer billing service departments, and in some industries, customer service and customer billing go hand in hand. Good customer billing practices and competent customer service help build customer loyalty and retention, where a business keeps its initial customers and thrives.
These days, lots of companies use customer billing software to issue information about what customers owe. In many cases, customers will have questions about their bill, or they will want to change services or modify their agreements to get lower charges on their bills. In these cases, good customer service can help the business hang onto customers, and bad customer service can drive them away. This is where lots of companies use skilled human customer service agents to help deal with problem solving that will eventually lead to customer retention.
Generally, the first part of a customer billing cycle is automated. That’s where a bill goes out to the customer for a specific amount. Where the human customer billing or customer service individuals come in is when there is “feedback” on the automated billing, where a customer picks up the phone and calls the company. Customer service people will verify the identity of the caller and look at his or her account to see if that customer is being treated fairly.
In addition to conventional customer service, customer billing agents sometimes play other similar roles in how the business works. Many companies will authorize customer service agents to give out specific discounts based on various criteria in order to satisfy a customer who is complaining about their bill. All of this may be handled on a statistical level by larger software programs that help business leaders identify what discounts or practices will help them keep their customers.
The similarity between today’s customer bill handling and customer service environments shows how companies deal with customer complaints. These kinds of setups also help customers who simply don’t understand their bill, or want to make adjustments based on changing needs. Although a great deal of the process is automated, the best companies offer human agents without an extremely long wait time, so that customers can still feel that they are being well served when they do have to talk to an actual person.