Automated Meter Collection Deserves a Closer Look

It’s month end close and the engine is running high RPM’s. The sales team is turning in deal upon deal, our installation teams are working in overdrive to close up both large and small installations, and the administrative team is bringing all of the billing due to close out the month. The numbers are looking solid.

To offer some background, we have established an end-to-end program as part of a phased initiative to drive down costs while driving up customer and team member satisfaction. The first phase is simply automating a tedious process of collecting “meters” from our managed devices to efficiently bill our client base for management contracts, billing approximately 40% – 50% of our fleet using this technology with the remainder being collected via other semi-automated means. We utilize a SaaS offering called Facilities Manager by Print Audit which I have branded as RemoteFleet, with some help from my colleague Darrell Amy, owner of Dealer Marketing Systems.

These issues were interesting in that they demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding and distrust of the software in play to accommodate this automation. One situation detailed a discrepancy between an internal-use application the customer purchased and our invoice while another demonstrated a disbelief that customer volume might have tripled over a quarterly billing cycle.

The goal here was to not minimize the concern while isolating the cause and ensuring a method for corrective action was applied.

First, let’s clear the air and establish some ground rules:

• The technology delivery is sound: Regardless of what company you use, meter collection has become fairly standardized. I believe more strongly in Print Audit’s offering for various reasons, but there is a base expectation that accuracy is higher now than ever across platforms.
• Manufacturers are still trying: Even though the collection process is becoming more sound, each manufacturer only partially adheres to openly publishing their MIB databases, often citing competitive advantages for keeping certain information close to the chest. The relationships your print management company has with manufacturers is highly important as this helps open communication and ensure the highest level of accuracy.
• I don’t trust it: There is still a distrust of software tools in general, not specific to industry or platform. This underscores a fundamental educational gap, generally. In other words, if I don’t understand how it works, I don’t trust it.

With all of this being said, it is important that your organization be able to cut to the proverbial chase. Before there is a discrepancy, here are a few things that will help you and your company maintain sanity:

1. Establish a baseline: If there are questions, establishing a trend line of the account’s utilization can help you avoid heated debates by warning customers and account managers alike of odd behaviors.
2. Establish checkpoints: If you are a fan of billing overages in quarterly or bi-annually blocks, ensure you create checkpoints during the billing cycle to ensure usage is on track.
3. Automate processes and manage exceptions: With the volume of information pouring in to our businesses, ensure you establish streamlined processes to handle most of your service level agreements and leverage technology that allows you to review variances in this process to avoid unsightly arguments with customers over issues that could’ve been avoided.
4. Communication is key: Clearly communicate the process as well as the dispute resolution process to your internal and external customers. It’s important that your team not resort to bickering amongst themselves. Instead, they need to work together to avoid mistakes ahead of time or ensure they are all on the same side of discovering why a mistake was made rather than pointing fingers.

Lastly, who is responsible for the day-to-day of managing your dashboard? If you subscribe to the belief that collecting a meter is every bit as important as selling a deal or servicing a device (and you should), who do you entrust this monumental opportunity to you in your business?

Before you answer, think about what this touches:

• Revenue generation: If you are getting your meters in a timely and accurate manner, you can trust your clients will pay in an timely and accurate manner.
• Proactive management: proactively seeks to curb unneeded billing disputes well ahead of billing due dates.
• Customer-focused: Keep your customers in focus and ensure they trust your company beyond a shadow of a doubt because they have someone working to quickly research any questions or discrepancies that appear.
• Marketing, marketing, marketing: Give this person an opportunity to make some extra cash by signing up more customers to your program. Even though it may cost you in the short term, it will save you so much more if you take the long-view on this. Think of the marketing exposure for someone calling on your customer because they care enough to try and save them some time and hassle. What is that worth to you?

Now, ask yourself, who SHOULD be handling this in your organization?

Image courtesy of Okko Pyykko

Ken Stewart’s website, ChangeForge, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology in an information-centric world. Ken is also the founder of Seeking the Son. He is always interested in connecting; To discover the many ways you may connect with him, visit him at DandyID.