Feature topic - Customer and client fulfillment
KT: If I answer this as what would be the wish list of many of our clients it would be to provide a full HR service from recruitment to exit, collate all payroll information and act as the payroll department and the HR department in one. AV: As a supplier, you must understand and address the needs of individual customers and not just say, ‘Here’s my solution, let’s make that fit your problem’. Suppliers need to be flexible enough to consider what is and isn’t important for each customer, and therefore develop a tailored solution which directly solves that customer’s key issues. Another key principle is having a mindset for continuous improvement, even if customers already believe the service is exceptional. And, finally, it’s key to deliver value at a strategic level. Beyond just providing software or a service, a truly customer- focused supplier should deliver real data-driven insights that help payroll and HR teams have relevant and impactful discussions at board level. ...the right (and only) thing to do is to communicate what’s gone wrong and what you’ll do to resolve it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
ensure customer/client needs are fulfilled? SP: Clearly listening and engaging with customers while also including them on your own journey ensures they are at the heart of everything you do. At MHR, we arrange regular panels with customers to gain their feedback on how best to enhance or improve a system, and find this highly beneficial. Customers then feel that they have had an active role to play in such a project, and a positive perception of the company’s brand is maintained. PT: At SD Worx we have a continuous improvement culture that aligns with our customers’ culture, and we measure this through clear deliverables and KPIs [key performance indicators] – which can be in ‘upcoming legislation’ and ‘key end to end processes’. Above everything, we always try and put ourselves in our customers’ shoes and understand their needs. KT: The key is to go the extra mile in customer service, and I believe over the last eight months this is what has happened. The difficulty, however, is a payroll service provider must make a profit, and more resource is going to be needed to really go beyond client expectations. AV: You must recognise that customer success doesn’t begin and end with the sales process. Suppliers not only have to hold themselves accountable for delivering on the value and benefits they have promised to customers, but they also have to look for ways to preserve and strengthen that relationship in the long-term. This includes, for example, proactively bringing forward ideas for further process optimisation, or how to improve the quality of reporting. Plus, even if the qualitative feedback from customers is good, suppliers should consider if there are other effective ways of measuring customer fulfilment, such as through metrics like transactional net promoter score, as these often shed light on opportunities for improvement that may otherwise be missed. How should payroll/HR providers deal with situations where mistakes are made or the customer/client is dissatisfied with the service? SP: The first step to rectifying this is accepting the responsibility and being honest about where it went wrong. No software is 100% error-free; providers should be transparent about the timeframe
prove it has deep expertise and proven experience in its fields. The second important need is cost efficiency. Payroll is a major cost centre in most organisations, and so there has always been a need to find new ways to create efficiencies, particularly around the more transactional processes that have traditionally been done manually. Many organisations are therefore looking to suppliers to provide solutions that help them harness process automation and artificial intelligence. What are the key principles of customer/client fulfilment in payroll and HR? SP: Along with accuracy, the customer’s system being able to match their expectations is another key factor. Customers are truly fulfilled if the system is able to automate complex processes and remove the day-to-day calculations, which is why it’s so important for the right data to be input from the get-go. The system is only as good as the data fed into it, so the more accurate the data, the more able the system is of supporting the customer throughout. PT: You must create a partnership and collaborative approach with all key stakeholders (external and internal) in order to get the most of your payroll, especially at the beginning of the relationship when you’re discussing the objectives and details. There needs to be lots of communication and discussion and the results will reflect that approach. It will be clear if there has been no communication because you’ll experience issues, missed deadlines and overall poor performance, which will be evident in the data that underpins the whole process.
In what ways can payroll/HR providers go the extra mile to
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 66 | December 2020 - January 2021
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