Accountor using WhatsApp in Accounts Receivable
Accountor recently also started using WhatsApp to communicate with clients we’re invoicing. This is a quick, user-friendly way for us to resolve issues, help sort out anything that’s unclear and avoid possible problems. And an easily accessible platform for agreeing procedures. The WhatsApp messages we send also include an iDeal link that clients can use for quick and easy payments.
These days, being online 24/7 is completely normal. As well as e-mail and phone, our smartphones now offer many other ways for us to contact each other. And with over a billion people now using WhatsApp for 65 billion messages a day, it’s only logical for us, too, to use it. As DC team leader, Patrick Heyne, explains: ‘In Accounts Receivable, communicating with clients is really important. Although we’ve got many clients’ telephone numbers, they often don’t pick up when they’re called. But if we send a WhatsApp message, we almost always get a reply.’
WhatsApp and Accountor: how does it work?
In our e-mails and letters, and also on Debtorweb, debtors can find a QR code for communicating via WhatsApp. They can then decide for themselves whether to use the app to contact us. If they contact us during office hours, we’ll reply immediately or within a short space of time. And anyone contacting us outside office hours will automatically receive confirmation that we’ve received their message. ‘It also works the other way round,’ Patrick emphasizes: ‘If we notice that other means of communication don’t work so well, we can decide to send a WhatsApp message ourselves.’
So far, reactions have been positive, both externally and internally. ‘It’s interesting to see how many people like using WhatsApp. We can see that in the contents and quality of the reactions we’ve had. This ‘new’ means of communications also allows us to contact debtors proactively and use standardized WhatsApp templates. An extra feature is the centralized dashboard we can use to ensure effective workflows, for example, and allocate work more efficiently,’ says Patrick.
