Addressing Customer Billing Pain Points Through More Thoughtfully Presented Invoices and Account Statements Leveraging Salesforce Lightning – realtor.com Tech Blog

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Last year, after receiving feedback from surveys and customer interviews, Realtor.com’s Enterprise Systems team was challenged to clarify our billing models for our customers. Internally, we were able to report on most of these questions and provide answers; however, customer self-service options were limited. 
Customers could access some billing information by accessing Account Statements and Invoices through their Product & Billing Portal. Although these documents had been revised a few times to mirror bank statements and other industry-standard documents, they still didn’t exist in a format that met customers’ needs. 
For example, the Account Statements and Invoices presented a running list of information in chronological order, which was often confusing and generated more questions than answers. Also, for larger customers, these documents could be many pages long without a clear summary to provide the information they need.
To solve this problem, our business stakeholders came to us with a new proposal to modify the current Account Statements and Invoices. The new format would need to provide summary-level information and enable customers to drill down into specific data items. 

Customers rely on Account Statements and Invoices to provide transparent information, including: 

How much they were invoiced in a particular period
How much they have received in credits each period, if any
Confirmation of payments
Notifications of delinquency
Contributions from partner accounts

In the old format, all this information was presented in chronological lists, with billing activity available in a single view. Some information was also nested within line items, which often caused more confusion than clarity. 
Recently, we also overhauled our credit process to provide reasons for every credit provided. While these changes have made it easier internally to show where credits came from and to which invoices they are applied, they haven’t yet been exposed in customer-facing documents.

To solve the problem, we took a multi-step approach:

Collaborated with stakeholders to come up with a direction: Over several months, we held extensive working sessions to engage account managers and collate all the information they collected from customers about their user experience. We then devised a proposal for a new streamlined layout that incorporates the critical functionality customers were looking for.
Engaged the design team to bring the vision to life: Next, we took all of this input and worked closely with the design team to create a dynamic and organized invoice and account statement template that we could take back to customers for feedback.
We collected feedback and revised the design. Then, we iterated on the design and presented variations to business stakeholders and customers, soliciting their input until we settled on a solution that met their needs. 
Evaluated technical solutions: Our previous infrastructure was based on Salesforce Visualforce pages, an older version of Salesforce technology. We realized we would have to build using the newer Salesforce Lightning-based system to have more design flexibility and an easier-to-update framework for future changes. We also looked into multiple external vendors that handled document management as an alternative. Eventually, we found that the Lightning framework would give us all the functionality we needed to incorporate our use cases. 
Developed and executed the solution: We partnered closely with TechMod to execute this initiative, regularly providing technical guidance and support. We also continued regular stakeholder reviews during the development cycle to incorporate feedback quickly. Lastly, we gathered early customer feedback to ensure we were solving their key pain points.

The outcome of this iterative process was a new, interactive layout for Account Statements and Invoices that enabled customers to see all billing information organized into categories. 
For the Account Statements specifically, we focused on expandable sections, where customers could drill in on specific transactions or categories for more information, as needed. However, the first page customers will land on is a summary version of the statement, which provides the most relevant information. 

In previous versions of the Account Statements and Invoices, we tried to create a document that would serve both internal stakeholders and external customers. A key takeaway from the project was the realization that customers wanted different information and needed it presented more simply. We learned that our internal users could leverage many other tools to access the information they needed and that the Account Statements and Invoices were primarily for customers to get a clear picture of their billing activities.

Since launching our new invoices, internal users and customers have received positive initial feedback. Customers have noted that the structure makes it easier to understand the information and gives them confidence, as it aligns with their expectations of what should be included on an invoice. 
We will continue to see the benefits of this structure as we launch future initiatives. For example, our revamped Lender Comarketing initiative will address complexity issues and the lack of visibility into partner contributions to subscriptions.  

We plan to launch the final component of this initiative, the dynamic Account Statements, in the second half of our fiscal year. This will benefit large customers who previously had to scroll through multiple pages or export records to understand a month of billing. 
The new format for Account Statements will provide a summary-level view and the ability to expand sections as needed. These improvements lay the groundwork for improving customer satisfaction and building trust with our brand.
Please feel free to contact me on LinkedIn with any comments or questions. I am always eager to connect with others in the industry.
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