The sales manager returns with a signed contract. And the dance starts. The order gets into the ERP, then the production process runs. The logistic prepares the shipping, and the item arrives at the customer.

It looks like a simple workflow. Even so, it involves several people, several steps and several checkpoints.

The journey continues with the billing phase.

Predictions and proactive actions

The acquisition of a new customer is a trigger for many automatic procedures. For example, the automation can check if the customer has already an account on your mobile app and sends an email for promoting its installation, adding a special voucher for an additional discount to the current order.

On the other side, the AI calculates the average completion time of similar orders. When it gets outside the predicted time, it automatically sends an email or pushes a notification to the customer for notifying the potential delay. At the same time, it notifies the delay to the sales manager and the production.

Customer-centric invoicing

The order is now ready to be shipped. As is expected, the automation sends the link with the shipment’s tracking number to the customer via email or push notification.

Besides, it sends other links. It recognises the customer’s category from several information sources: the customer’s profile compiled by the sales manager, the social presence, and the purchased product/service. This category has a connection with links to interviews and dedicated content. Especially for this phase, the marketing has conceived online advertisement material and published it on your social platforms. The AI detects the top matching links and sends them to the customer.

Furthermore, when the product is in a fiscal category that can bring some tax advantages, the AI notifies them together with the invoice. It provides links to the government web site explaining the facilitation.

Recurring payments

Of course, there are valuable prizes for your job like acknowledging, good rating, and good word of mouth. Even so, in the end, the core of your business is receiving the payment for the job you did.

Automation can help here too. When the customer chooses not to subscribe to your abonnement and pay manually, the AI automatically reminds the renewal with enough time before the deadline. The remembering message contains the current on-going promotion offered for subscribing. When the customer completes the manual payment successfully, the automation sends a confirmation with an additional discount for converting the manual renewal to a subscription. The company can establish a discounting policy for each of the cases.

Besides, when a customer decides to cancel a subscription, the automation notifies the sales manager. It also sends a survey to collect information regarding the reason for the decision to leave.

Conclusion

This episode of our journey rounds around the billing phase. Automation in this ERP area performs proactively. Its primary purpose here is keeping in contact with the customer. Well-known events trigger the actions of AI for optimising the quality of communication.