Building better invoices to create a stronger customer experience

Building better invoices to create a stronger customer experience

Why Your Invoices Matter What do your invoices have in common with your website, your helpdesk and your technicians? They all serve as touchpoints with your customers among the few recurring ones you have if you re a small or medium-sized MSP and when they re done right, they re a great opportunity to reinforce the value you deliver and strengthen the customer experience. Consider these four best practices for creating professional invoices that show existing and potential customers alike that you re the right MSP for their business: 1. Accuracy 2. Professionalism 3. Timeliness 4. Service 2

1. Accuracy As you grow your managed services business, an accurate invoice is one of the more important keys to building trust with your customers. (Conversely, an inaccurate invoice can spark distrust in your services and your practice.) One of the best ways to ensure accuracy is by automating as much of the billing process as possible. For example, if you can fully integrate your technicians field reports and your helpdesk processes with your billing platform, you can deliver accuracy and clarity for every item listed on your invoices. 3

2. Professionalism A clear and easy-to-understand invoice tailored to each customer s needs allows you to always put your best foot forward. Rather than using a one-size-fits-all template across your entire customer base, your invoices should be as simple or as detailed as necessary to reflect the different billing models used by each particular customer, whether that s hourly, on retainer or fully managed services. This way, you can bill your customers in the way they like best improving satisfaction while showing a deeper understanding of their business needs. 4

3. Timeliness Nobody likes to get a bill? That s not entirely true. Customers expect to be billed but they expect that bill to arrive at a specific time and date. When customers know they ll be billed promptly, it s easier for them to track costs and plan expenses. A late invoice, on the other hand, can feel like an unexpected expense and that leads to a negative customer experience. When your ticketing, helpdesk and invoicing tools are working together, previously manual steps can be eliminated, helping you generate and send invoices faster and more efficiently and the faster your customers receive their invoices, the sooner you get paid. 5

4. Service You should always be ready to answer questions after the invoice has been sent to help build and grow the relationship. An integrated ticketing, helpdesk and invoicing system makes it easier to respond quickly to billing questions making you look professional and that you are on top of things. 6

An Easier Way to Bill Customers MSP Manager from SolarWinds N-able is a cloud-based service-management platform for creating support tickets, scheduling technicians and generating professional invoices everything you need to deliver quality service to your customers. Its integrated, customizable billing process saves you time while increasing the accuracy of your invoices. You can also generate multiple invoices simultaneously for faster, more efficient billing and then export your invoices directly to your preferred accounting software. Combining the agility of a basic helpdesk solution with the functionality of a professional services automation (PSA) platform, MSP Manager enables a smoother, more agile way of running your managed services business. 7

About SolarWinds N-able SolarWinds N-able is the global leading provider of complete IT management, Automation, and MSP business transformation solutions. SolarWinds N-able s awardwinning N-central is the industry s #1 RMM and MSP Service Automation Platform. SolarWinds N-able has a proven track record of helping MSPs standardize and automate the setup and delivery of IT services in order to achieve true scalability. N-central is backed by the most comprehensive business enablement support services available today and the industry s only Freemium licensing model. Thousands of MSPs use SolarWinds N-able solutions to deliver scalable, flexible, profitable managed services to over 100,000 SMBs worldwide. With offices in North America, the Netherlands and Australia, N-able is 100% channel-friendly and maintains strategic partnerships with Microsoft, Intel, IBM, CA, and Cisco among others. For more information on SolarWinds N-able products and solutions, please visit www.n-able.com. 8 2015 N-able Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. N-able Technologies, Inc. s trademarks, service marks, logos and copyrights are the exclusive property of N-able Technologies, Inc. and its affiliates. All other trademarks or works mentioned herein are used for identification purposes only and may be or are intellectual property of their respective companies. N-able Technologies and SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC are not affiliated with any of the respective companies.