Use a Convenience Fee to encourage use of your on-line capability
Q: “I see a service called ‘Convenience Fee’. What is this fee for?”
A: Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how convenient your online service is, your customers may still call you. While it’s generally a great thing when your customers call you– versus when the phone lines are being silent!– if you have limited office staff, this can be an issue. Investments in online ordering technology are intended to lower your operating costs, but if you have customers who routinely call your office to shoot the breeze and eventually place an order, well, this could be a problem. Your view may be that such calls take time away from your customer service persons who may need to address less routine matters. When enabled, the Convenience Fee helps defray your order processing costs by having the client pay for your people’s time.
The way it works is very simple: when enabled, when an order is placed, SignTraker looks at who is actually placing it. If it is one of your people (instead of the agent, or one of your customer’s listing representatives), SignTraker automatically tacks on the fee you have pre-determined for that particular client. Typically, this charge is anywhere from $1 to $5 per order. The charge is displayed on the Order Details, and is also visible by your client in their SignTraker Order Invoice History.
Note that if one of your folks is placing an order to address a particular issue and you don’t want to charge the fee, you can readily omit the fee. An example might be you placing a warranty service order, where the client is not going to be charged anything.
By charging a Convenience Fee, you can encourage your agents to use the excellent system you have provided for them, free up your Customer Service Reps to handle more involved issues, as well as defray the cost of agents using your Customer Service Reps if that simply happens to be their personal preference.
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