Managed Services: The Engine Powering B2B Loyalty

Speaker A: Okay, so for this episode we're going to go deep into managed services today, when headlines are dominated by new AI developments by the hour, ever changing global political environments. And with that shifting pipelines, how can we continue to drive and grow customer loyalty amongst all of this uncertainty? Is automation the solution? Or are companies underestimating the operational complexity behind delivering a circuit seamless buyer experience? And how are managed services evolving from a, uh, cost play into a strategic growth engine and lever? To answer these questions and more, I'm extremely excited to talk to two of the smartest people we have here at Trevipay who can help us figure these things out. And uh, I'm just going to go ahead. Can you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves?

Speaker B: Sure. Hi Clint. My name is Ines Berkhof. I oversee Travi Pay in emea. And um, this is uh, a topic dear to my heart. I have an experience and operations background and therefore I'm very pleased to be here and talk with Colleen about this exciting topic.

Speaker C: Hi, I'm Colleen Auditore. I'm um, the chief Operating Officer here at Trevipay. I've been here for over 15 years and basically I do all of the managed services that are part of our Trevipay solution. And so I am extremely passionate about this and I'm excited about the topic and the conversation today.

Speaker A: Perfect. And like I said, I don't think we could have two better people in the world to talk to us about this. So we'll just jump in and say, first question, how have managed services evolved from a cost play to a growth lever?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, I mean what we see is that B2B companies are no longer outsourcing tasks, they're outsourcing complexity. So they want to focus on what they, they're really good at. Um, and what we are, for instance, what we've seen in our census wide research that has been published over the past months is that uh, the main dissatisfiers for buyers are the exceptions, let's say the things that they want to contact their supplier, they have a question, there's a query, there's an issue, um, and the way that's been managed, uh, is basically defining part of their experience, uh, but also the way that they're handling the invoices that they're getting from their vendors and whether or not that is a smooth process, uh, or not. So in that end, uh, if that is a smooth and nice experience, uh, it's definitely a growth lever or supporting loyalty. But if it isn't, which is quite often the case. Then it might be prone to retention risks.

Speaker C: Exactly. The bar has moved. Managed services, as you stated, is no longer about running a process to potentially save money. It is about expanding, expecting a different outcome that will lead to a better customer experience. They want to make sure the buyer gets onboarded fast, the invoice is right, the dispute gets resolved so the client doesn't even have to think about any of this. Execution used to just live in the back office. Uh, now it's the thing that wins or loses an account. So we treat it as strategy versus an overhead that makes total sense.

Speaker A: And you know, we talked about all the uncertainty and different volatilities that we're facing out there. What has fundamentally changed specifically for the B2B buyer expectations?

Speaker B: Uh, what we see is actually that buyers are expecting more like a consumer type experience. Right. Uh, they, they want it quite often digital or omnichannel. They want consistency, they want transparency. And buyers have less patience. So friction basically directly impacts loyalty and revenue in that sense. So it's uh, to glean's point, it's about the speed to, to approve a credit line or the speed by which a dispute has been managed, uh, you know, receiving the invoice in a proper way. So yeah, those are all things that matter nowadays. And the digital aspect, uh, plays a more important role than uh, ever. So I can give you a great use case. I was at an event a, um, couple of months ago. It uh, was actually for the manufacturing industry where they were sharing best practices from um, from an E commerce perspective. And how do you implement an E commerce channel as a, as an additional channel to, to basically um, to foster growth and uh, a better experience for customers. So then the topic was raised, okay, how do you, how do you handle onboarding in a digital, in a digital environment? Right. And uh, someone um, with a manufacturing background gave the example that they were super proud that within five days they could give the customer the approval to pay on terms. And my immediate response was I couldn't help myself and I just said okay, that's five days of lost business. So to that, that's the, I think the perfect example in terms of what buyers are expecting. They want speed, they want transparency, and I think could be really, really cool to, to wow a customer with an experience that is even better than what they're, they're expecting.

Speaker A: So Inez, I know that in Europe we're hearing a lot of things about the coming changes as far as how important a compliant invoice is and will be.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And uh, and you're absolutely right, it's a hot topic in uh, in, in Europe. So what buyers really expect is, is first of all that their supplier has their act together in terms of uh, uh, sending the, the, the compliant invoice. Uh, for sure. And what we're seeing is that a lot of suppliers are struggling with that still. They're trying to find their solution. And what we're also finding is that uh, if you are a buyer and you work with multiple uh, vendors or suppliers, there's no consistency yet in terms of how the suppliers are sending their invoices. And this is why within a country when the mandate is issued, then those suppliers in that country will have consistency as to how they send their invoices to the buyer in that country. But if you think about cross border business, which is not unusual in Europe. Right. You can have that a supplier in, in, in the, in the home country, let's say has a, the consistency of the, the invoicing mandate. But then your international supplier may not be in a country that, that is yet ready for the implementation of the mandate and therefore you will receive a different type of invoice. And I think that the friction sits on the buyer side with the inconsistency of the, you know, on the receiving end, uh, whereas they just expect, just give me a compliant invoice. That's I believe, one of the things that our B2B buyers expecting and is not properly solved for in Europe yet.

Speaker C: I also am very passionate about thinking about the E invoicing from the buyer's perspective because I think there's been so much emphasis on it from a supplier. And what we're failing to see is that although you may not need to be compliant, if you're sending something cross border, you're causing friction for your buyer. And so we're trying to figure out how we can play a role in helping that buyer, regardless of where the supplier is domiciled and ensuring that they get the invoice in the right format because they're going to want to automate that format. They're going to expect a certain format and making that as seamless as possible creates that loyalty and less friction.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And that's a good transition to set you up, Colleen, as how important is this that we keep everything smooth and that there's no friction in this process.

Speaker C: The five day example is a really interesting one because when we think about that with our process and our timeline like five days and what B2B buyers have from an expectation. You now take those five days and stretch them across the entire order to cash journey every step. Not just that onboarding is a place for us to win or lose that buyer. You know, we talk about it at the credit decisioning, but the same is on onboarding. The first invoice, the 10,000th invoice, the dispute speed and ease stop being a nice to have. And it's really an expedition expectation now. And the less patience thing really cuts us two ways. It means being proactive, uh, we need to strip the friction out before the buyer even fills it. And it also means that when something goes wrong, that's the exact moment where we have to deliver our best experience, not just our most apologetic one.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with you calling on that one because it's uh, I mean it's, it's inevitable that friction will happen at some point. I mean there, there's no such thing as a flawless 0% mistakes, right. In uh, in order to cash process. But it's exactly that. To your point, how do you handle that and is that the right experience for the buyer? Because if it is, then that buyer has to trust. Because now we earned their trust that we're capable of handling it properly. Right. Or actually the seller is because we obviously are working on behalf the seller. But that, that trust brings that buyer back even though there was a mistake or there was something to solve.

Speaker A: So where do we find that companies are struggling with customer loyalty or business growth today?

Speaker C: So customer loyalty is earned and it's earned through consistency. And so if there's fragmentation, meaning different systems, different regions, different teams all touching the same buyer and not creating that consistent feeling about the experience, you start to erode some of that customer loyalty. And once a buyer hits two or three inconsistent experiences, the trust loyalty is gone. And that's a lot harder to win back than it was to lose. And uh, that loyalty is directly related to business growth.

Speaker B: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more, Colleen. I mean for me to put it simple, it's growth is or the opportunity is lost in the execution, not in the strategy. Right. To your point, if the ball's dropped, right, it's how do you pick it up and how do you solve for it. Uh, and even the smallest frictions can be dissatisfiers, right. For buyers. And it could create revenue leakage and retention risk with a blink of an eye. So if I bring it back to Europe again and think about the country specific idiosyncrasies, there's a lot of International companies that uh, do business uh, with different countries and therefore with different cultures. There's no such thing as a one size fits all. So something that works beautifully in a, you know, in the way you handle relationships and the way you communicate with customers in a certain country doesn't really work in another. So I give you a great example. So within Europe, Polish customers tend uh, to be a little bit more, let's say digitally communicating. So they're, they're totally fine just exchanging emails and stuff like that. Whereas for example an Italian customer that they don't want to read emails, they just want to have someone on the phone. Right. And let alone uh, you know, speaking in the local language, which is a no brainer. We all know that. Right? But it's those little nuanced, just understanding that hey, in Poland we were better off communicating through email. But hey, in Italy we just got to have our rock stars on the phone who are capable of handling and managing the situation on the, on the phone. So yeah, that's what I'm seeing.

Speaker C: And actually when we meet the customer where they are, that also helps to create that loyalty. It shows our expertise. It just really helps with the overall relationship and making sure that the order to cash cycle is flawless and easy for them to use.

Speaker A: So we wouldn't be having a conversation about business or life in general if we didn't bring up AI. So I'm uh, super curious to see in your opinion, where does AI truly create value and where is it maybe overrated?

Speaker C: So from my perspective, AI works best when it's invisible. It's built into the workflows and it's not bolted on top. For us, that looks like AI matching unapplied payments or helping to draft first responses on a dispute. So the team start at an 80% instead of a blank screen. When dealing with something, it should be about boosting efficiency. It doesn't replace human empathy and judgment. The minute a buyer is upset or an exception gets messy. You want a person who can not only read the room, have that higher level thinking and really be able to get to the messy part of it and help to solve a problem. So what AI is doing for us is it allows us to think about the 80% that AI can do and get us to that 20% where the human really matters faster so that we can create those interactions and solve those messier problems with the empathy and the human touch that we know is still going to be necessary.

Speaker B: I 100% agree with you, Colleen. It's an enabler, not A strategy. Right. So it should basically amplify what already works. And what we see is that also, uh, from research, right. AI is used a lot on the accounts payable side. And I can totally see why that is because there's no, there's no customer involved. It's, it's more about automating, coming invoices, you know, zero touch, what have you not. I can totally see that. But it becomes a little bit more challenging I think, when there's a customer involved, because that's a human. And that to Colleen's point, wants to be treated in a certain way, wants to be understood, whatever.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And it requires, to Colleen's point, it requires empathy and true understanding of the issue at hand to uh, to get to a resolution. So AI maybe super easy and the logical go to, I don't know, mean, if you will, on the AP side. But on the side it needs more sophistication to, to Colleen's point. And, and I, I'm super happy with how we're doing it and I, I, I see how our clients and their customers are thriving on that.

Speaker A: We've answered where AI fits in. Why do human LED services still matter?

Speaker B: In my humble opinion, it's all about trust. So trust is built in critical moments, not in automated ones.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: It's, it's going back to the use cases that we just described. Right. So B2B still runs on relationships. Clients, our clients heavily rely on, on when it, on us, when it comes down to the user experience and the, basically the use cases that we're handling on their behalf is literally the make or break. Right. It's the yay or nay. So we have to do everything we can to resolve those issues in the best possible way to make the economy experience great for the buyer. Because we know that it's building trust with, with their supplier, our, our client in this case. So we review our NPS and CSAT scores uh, on a, on a daily basis just to make sure that we're, we're serving the, the customers in the right way. We identify opportunities to improve. Obviously that's a sort uh, of continuous improvement exercise. But yeah, we're, we're very, very, very keen on making sure that the experience is right because it builds trust and trust means loyalty for our clients.

Speaker C: Yeah. And as I completely agree, customer experience is more important now than ever before. And when we think about the human LED versus the automation, automation is really for volume. Humans are for complexity and relationships. The thousand clean invoices. Go ahead, automate them. The one Buyer stuck in a messy dispute that needs a person who can actually solve it. And here's what people miss. Customers don't remember all of the transactions that went fine. They remember the exception the one time something broke and how we showed up to fix that. That's where the experience is really made. And that's why the human LED is still so super important in everything that we do.

Speaker B: 100% agreed.

Speaker A: Okay, so this has all been super informative and helpful and I think we've demonstrated why we can help enterprises across the board. Final question I have for you guys is what should enterprise leaders watch over the next few years? What should they keep their eye on?

Speaker B: I think the, that growth becomes harder. I think if you, if you look at the geopolitical situation right now, there's lots and lots of challenges everywhere, both on the commercial side and on the financial side. So I think leaders should strategize on the decision for, for budget people and AI and they need to tie it directly back to revenue. That said, I think it, what we're seeing with our, with our clients and with, with companies in general is that they, they tend to start thinking about freeing up resources so that uh, from an operational complexity perspective so that they can basically focus on what they do best, meaning more focusing on their product, on their services and on, on, on sales and marketing so that they, they can move faster, scale smarter and, and stay focused. So in today's environment, uh, how you operate is just as important as what you sell.

Speaker C: As an enterprise leader planning for the future for all of the reasons that Ines said, I think it's time to take it back to the fundamentals. Businesses will benefit most from focusing on their core competencies. For example, if you're in manufacturing, focus on how to improve and scale your manufacturing operations and keep it compliant with the global changes. Same is true in any vertical. Leave the managed services to someone else, someone who considers order to cash their core competencies.

Speaker A: Well, this has been great. I think we've clearly shown how important managed services are and why they need to be a priority and who you can come to, to have, uh, help you with them. So thank you both so much. This has been wonderful.

Speaker C: Thank. You.