The Challenge
Billtrust provides leading-edge automation software and services that dramatically improve performance and efficiency of processing enterprise receivables and payables. It enables corporations, financial institutions, and government agencies that receive either electronic or paper payment and remittance documents to realize the highest levels of automation, data accuracy, and operational savings for their receivables processing.
When you’re a financial SaaS platform helping customers save money in labor and reduce time in working capital, while processing payments, you need to offer an intuitive product that visually demonstrates the quantifiable business benefits associated with solving your customer’s immediate pain points. This principle is the heart of Billtrust’s business – and the motivation for the company to implement VisualizeROI across its sales team.
Before VisualizeROI, Billtrust used isolated Excel spreadsheets as a tool to showcase the value of their software and services to prospective customers. Often times, the Excel spreadsheet proved to be inefficient as it wasn’t visually appealing or collaborative. More often than not, customers pushed back because they couldn’t visualize the ROI, resulting in prolonged sales-cycles and superfluous follow-up conversations. Also, because Billtrust’s solution varies from sub-sector to sub-sector, the marketing organization feared they were missing the best targets. They did not have a tool to provide them with statistical information to hone their outbound marketing strategy.
The Strategy
Because Billtrust’s platform is built on value-based selling, the company knew it needed to adopt an intuitive solution that would prove the ROI in a more efficient and visually compelling way, as well as provide key data points around real company inputs. Moreover, when Billtrust started looking into VisualizeROI, another pain point was uncovered that they hadn’t considered: flexibility. With Excel, Billtrust didn’t have the control or flexibility to showcase different value propositions based on specific variables, such as expenditures or opportunities, and furthermore, couldn’t involve the customers in the process. Everything was a follow-up conversation or another meeting that required a revised spreadsheet.
Billtrust started working with VisualizeROI in December of 2012 and rolled out the platform to its sales teams in April 2013. Currently, there are eight sales people plus the VP of Sales who utilize VisualizeROI with over 100 interactive “Visualizers,” which are specific models tailored to individual customers. Not only have these models helped the sales team better prepare for sales meetings, but more important, they have allowed them to focus each conversation on the specific value the customer would realize by implementing Billtrust in their organization.
The Result
Since implementing VisualizeROI across its sales team, Billtrust has received the following results:
- The time the sales team spent preparing pricing and ROI presentations has been cut by 50-75%
- The level of customer interaction and engagement has significantly increased, therefore enhancing the customer experience and saving the sales representative’s time in back-and-forth conversations. It has also allowed the sales team to better understand what customers are thinking about and where they will derive the most value from the Billtrust solution.
- The average amount of time taken from the pricing stage of Billtrust’s sales methodology to the next phase has been cut by about half
- Through VisualizeROI’s statistical reporting capabilities, Billtrust’s marketing organization is better equipped to identify and target customer segments based on demographic thresholds which correlate to customer value
Billtrust has received positive feedback from various customers on the ease of use, flexibility, and level of interaction with the product. Billtrust’s customers and prospects have been delighted with the level of control and empowerment they have experienced when using VisualizeROI to have value-based conversations with Billtrust’s sales and account managers. By collaborating with customers on the process, Billtrust found they were more comfortable putting the numbers into the system themselves and had greater buy-in and more trust in the outcomes.
Based on the level of satisfaction from Billtrust’s sales team and customers, Billtrust plans to leverage VisualizeROI in all of its customers’ pricing plans and sales meetings. Eventually, the company will make VisualizeROI the standard and mandate that it be used with 100% of its prospects.
