Businesses now have so many software choices it can be overwhelming to decide what systems to use. Technology should make doing business easier and create a better digital workflow for both staff and customers.

Some of your systems, like your customer database, gamification tools or training programs will never be seen by the public. But others like the tools that help you take a payment or securely capture signatures can be used to improve the customer journey and enhance your brand reputation.

While technology is the best way to speed up work processes, shopping for automation solutions can be overwhelming, frustrating – and exhausting.

Companies with bigger budgets or younger management teams (who are used to adopting new apps and tools) may end up with more than necessary, which creates confusing workflow processes that customers don’t understand.

Employees may find workloads overwhelming or slow down on tasks if you’re asking them to log into too many places to finish a job. Training processes will also suffer if you are expecting associates to learn too many new systems at a time.

Other businesses with small budgets or difficult decision making processes can become paralyzed, opting instead not to adopt any digital workflows or tools at all. This can frustrate customers who prefer (and expect) workflow technology like email, text and web chat vs traditional channels like paper mail and telephone calls.

Your company should be using software that makes digital workflows faster and easier for customers and cuts down on the amount of systems you need to pay for each month.

Carlisle Wide Plank Floors is a U.S. based manufacturing company that offers white glove service to clientele online and in showrooms across the country.

Before adopting PDCflow’s Flow Technology for their payment communication workflows, they were using separate tools to collect signature approvals for job contracts and the down payments required to begin a project.

This system was:

• Holding up projects
• Causing a need for manual follow ups
• Requiring staff to use two separate systems for each part of the process

By replacing their old software with PDCflow’s functionality, Carlisle was able to cut down on costs and time by using a single digital workflow to capture authorizations and down payments all at once.

In addition, allowing customers to enter their own payment information during the process reduced Carlisle’s PCI compliance scope and has helped protect sensitive payment information.

Like Carlisle, most companies struggle to find payment tools that are flexible enough to accommodate other stages of a unique, efficient workflow.

Often, the need for new business workflow tools comes from noticing holes in your process or realizing what you’re doing is causing problems.

While it’s difficult to predict what issues every organization will encounter, there are best practices you can follow to simplify the billing and payment workflows your customers are expected to use.

• Omnichannel options - Provide as many options as possible. Credit card and ACH should be available and you should let people choose when and where they make their payments – on their terms.

• Make it fast - customers shouldn’t have to carve out a lot of time or talk to an agent on the phone just to pay you. Simplify the process anywhere you can, so people can complete transactions as quickly as possible.

• Reduce friction - even if your workflow is fast, you may still need to optimize. Asking customers to create or remember a login just to pay shouldn’t happen. Dual authentication can help you maintain security by using a PIN both your staff and the customer will know. This keeps transactions just between you and the intended party.

• Choose trusted vendors - you should be able to reach out to vendors any time with questions and have confidence you’ll get answers. Customer service and industry knowledge should be part of the deal when you sign up for a new service.