SAP Solution Brief SAP Business Suite SAP Customer Financial Management

FINANCIAL CUSTOMER CARE AND DISPUTE MANAGEMENT

A SOLUTION FOR HIGH-VOLUME BUSINESS

With the SAP Customer Financial Management package, you can deal effectively with customers on all types of financial issues and enable your agents to handle inquiries and disputes in a guided, professional manner.

Offering state-of-the-art products and services may be what your company does best. But the technology you use to communicate with your own customers may be more blunt-edge than cuttingedge. And with customer expectations higher than ever and margins lower than ever you need transparent, integrated software that delivers on key strategic goals: lower churn and increase profitability.

Manage Business with Speed and Accuracy

Because it is built on the SAP NetWeaver technology platform, the software integrates information from all key sources. That means agents have consistent, up-to-date information in all customer-facing processes, including an interaction history across all communication channels, customer fact sheets, and risk profiles, to help them make the right decision in every situation. Financial Inquiries Using the financial customer care and dispute management functionality of SAP Customer Financial Management, agents can respond directly and effectively to customers financial-related inquiries about their accounts, increasing your first-call fix rate and improving data consistency. Agents can: Access, manage, and amend master data and contract account data Capture and update bank and credit card details Check account balances, including rated but unbilled amounts, bills, and payments Set and remove locks, such as those for payment and dunning, to prevent unwanted processing of certain items or accounts Accept payments and reactivate service, where appropriate Create or change payment arrangements, such as installment plans or promises to pay Release items for submission to external collection agencies Defer open items, trigger write-offs, and assign and reassign payments

Take Care of Your Customers While Taking Care of Finances

With the SAP Customer Financial Management package, SAP delivers powerful functionality for all financialrelated communications with your customers. SAP Customer Financial Management works with the interaction center functionality in the SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) application and is tailored to meet the needs of your industry. Together with SAP CRM, the software enables you to manage contacts, inbound and outbound, via any channel phone, fax, e-mail, postal mail, and Internet chat quickly and appropriately. The software arms your service agents with the facts and figures they need to provide immediate, accurate answers and with the functionality they require to resolve customer issues. It helps them improve overall customer care and better manage disputes, and it paves the way for smooth collections and optimal cash flow.

 Initiate a dispute and view previous ones Apply credit notes to resolve disputes (directly or through an approval process) Dispute Management By providing agents with data that is consistent and consolidated, youre reducing the scope for disputes and allowing issues to be addressed immediately in the first call. And when a dispute does occur, handling proceeds in a guided manner, speeding time to resolution. SAP Customer Financial Management helps ensure that disputes such as those relating to bills or dunning letters, for instance, are dealt with effectively and rapidly. For each dispute, the agent creates a case that contains all relevant

included in the complete history of the dispute. And thanks to tight integration across key applications, open receivable items that are subject to dispute are excluded from further financial activities, such as dunning or collections.

Use the Right Tools for the Job

SAP Customer Financial Management provides additional tools you need for financial customer care. State-of-the-art SAP technology enables you to provide excellent service with greater efficiency through: Automated alerts that warn agents of important issues, such as a high credit risk or overdue payments Scripts and prompts that guide agents through customer interactions Powerful tools for searching through a variety of information resources An e-mail response management system that automatically answers customer inquiries A notes tool for all customer accounts, which enables quick, easy capturing and tracking of interactions and historical data The ability to integrate both SAP and non-SAP software Integrated with Customer Self-Services Customers expect the same information whether they access their account through self-services or call a service agent. Through integration of all financial customer care and dispute management processes, the application supports a single version of the truth regardless of the channel. A customer can trigger a request through self-services, and the software forwards the task to the appropriate agent for completion. The soft-

The software helps your service agents improve overall customer care and better manage disputes, and it paves the way for smooth collections and optimal cash flow.

ware supports smooth, transparent processing and helps ensure that relevant information is added to the customer history in a consistent, nonredundant manner. Role-Based Interface for Interaction Center Managers Decision makers need to monitor and explore a wide range of key figures, such as the number of interactions per day, employee productivity, and customer behavior for instance, the number of contacts per channel. Such analysis helps them identify opportunities, increase profitability and customer satisfaction, and decrease costs. They can generate ad hoc reports and schedule regular distribution of information to management and staff, keeping everyone in the picture. By drawing data from a variety of systems, the role-based software provides managers with real-time call statistics so they can monitor quality continuously. And because all the facts are provided for each role, your managers can con-

With customer expectations higher than ever and margins lower than ever you need transparent, integrated software that delivers on key strategic goals: lower churn and increase profitability.
information, such as the parties involved, the affected documents, supporting material, adjustment requests, and so on. The agent can route the dispute to authorized handlers and trigger follow-up activities as required. Any notes or correspondence entered are

centrate on making decisions and keeping service levels up rather than gathering data.

Boost Profitability
You increase productivity with tools that enable your interaction staff to work more productively and to manage more customers. You strengthen integration, collaboration, and the flow of information throughout your organization. You also enhance back-office operations by introducing fully integrated communications between back-office and front-office staff and processes, presenting one face to the customer, and encouraging employees to resolve issues proactively to the full satisfaction of customers. SAP Customer Financial Management helps you cut costs because you: Can serve more customers with the same number of agents Decrease the need for training while increasing the quality of service through user-friendly, intuitive software Optimize the workload of staff at peak and off-peak periods Reduce implementation and maintenance costs because the software is integrated with receivables and collections management Besides functionality supporting customer care and dispute management, SAP Customer Financial Management encompasses functionality for receivables management and payment handling and credit and collections management. It can be integrated with the SAP Convergent Invoicing package and the SAP Convergent Charging application.

Enhance Satisfaction For Both Customers and Employees

By delivering the right information to the right people at the right time, SAP Customer Financial Management helps you exceed expectations, increasing satisfaction and loyalty among your customers and providing a sense of empowerment and achievement among your employees. You increase customer and staff satisfaction and improve credibility. Make the Most of Customer Interactions Agents can make the most of customer interactions and provide prompt, personalized, and expert service. Having all the details about a customer adds a highly personal touch to communications, making your customers feel valued and confident that information supplied is accurate and up-to-date; that any follow-up actions will occur; and, perhaps most important, that they are dealing with professionals. Let Your Customers Tell the Story Just Once When agents have access to details of all communications on all channels, including requests and disputes, customers dont need to explain previous interactions every time they contact your organization a true driver of satisfaction. This saves both your time and your customers time and eliminates a highly frustrating aspect of the customer contact process.

SAP Customer Financial Management is a modular component of SAP solutions supporting the consume-to-cash process for high-volume business, addressing rating and charging through to collections.

Learn More
For more information about how to transform your interaction center into a powerful, efficient profit center, please contact your local SAP representative or visit us on the Web at www.sap.com.

Powered by SAP NetWeaver

SAP Customer Financial Management is powered by the SAP NetWeaver technology platform. SAP NetWeaver unifies technology components into a single platform, providing the best way to integrate all systems running SAP or non-SAP software. SAP NetWeaver also helps organizations align IT with their business. As the foundation for service-oriented architecture, SAP NetWeaver allows organizations to compose and enhance business applications rapidly to drive business change.

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Summary The financial customer care and dispute management functionality of the SAP Customer Financial Management package enables your agents to provide proficient financial customer care, avoid disputes, and resolve customer issues quickly. They can manage contacts, inbound and outbound, via any channel phone, fax, e-mail, postal mail, and Internet chat quickly and appropriately. SAP Customer Financial Management is a modular component of SAP solutions supporting the consume-to-cash process for high-volume business, addressing rating and charging through to collections. Business Challenges Providing service agents with the facts and figures they need to provide immediate, accurate answers and resolve customer issues Having consistent, up-to-date information for all customer-facing processes Ensuring that billing and dunning letter disputes are dealt with effectively and rapidly Delivering the same information to customers regardless of contact channel Analyzing key figures, such as the number of interactions per day, employee productivity, and customer behavior Key Features Financial inquiries Enable agents to answer questions about a customers bill and related financial issues and take action Integrated dispute management Create a case containing all relevant information about a customer dispute and manage the dispute holistically Adjustment requests Offer adjustments or credit notes to customers Customer self-services Let customers access their accounts and take appropriate action Business Benets Provide a personal touch by enabling agents to make the most of customer interactions and provide prompt, personalized, expert service Rapidly fix issues and handle disputes by providing agents with consistent and consolidated customer data Increase customer satisfaction by eliminating the need for customers to explain previous interactions every time they contact you Decrease operational costs by analyzing and optimizing staff workload at peak and off-peak periods For More Information Call your SAP representative, or visit us online at www.sap.com.

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