Paperless systems can help service companies accommodate intensifying customer demand, while still saving money and time.

Appeasing customers never has be an easy task, but it’s grown incredibly difficult in the age of the online shopper.

In fact, a recent Accenture survey revealed almost 90 percent of customers want a seamless experience no matter what their method of shopping happens to be. Whether they are online, using mobile devices or physically on-site no longer matters – they expect to get the things they need in a timely manner.

“In many cases we have found a significant gap between consumer expectations and reality, but we believe seamlessness is achievable,” said Chris Donnelly, global managing director of Accenture’s Retail practice.

One Holiday Inn in Grand Rapids, Mich., is attempting to fulfill this desire by transitioning to a largely paperless document management system, WXMI-TV reported. The hotel is moving most of its payment processes online, which officials say will please customers.

“Many consumers today are used to electronic signature pads,” says Heather Emmons, the hotel’s director of guest services, according to the news source. “We imagine this change will be quite seamless.” But if the hotel’s predictions prove to be at all accurate, customers won’t be the only ones benefiting.

A recent study by PayStream Advisors found invoice automation to be the top-rated accounting goal for the near future, with 37 percent of the vote. Respondents to the survey listed a number of potential advantages they expect to gain from electronic invoicing.  Decreasing operating costs held the number-one spot.

Holiday Inn officials believe that paperless electronic payment methods would save the hotel more than 33,000 sheets of paper every year.  That is roughly equivalent to four trees.

There is a plethora of service companies who have achieved this kind of benefit from their paperless systems. Event planner firm Multi Image Group, for instance, implemented these solutions in 2007 as a means of increasing its vendor approval processes, but the technology has helped in ways they never expected, according to CFO Jonathan Reitzes.

“It’s been great,” Reitzes said. “My accounts payable person loves it because she’s not waiting around for weeks on end to   get something approved and there’s a trail now.”

Reitzes said that going paperless has made filing and retrieving documents – such as invoices – much simpler. Moreover, employees now have the option to access the system from any device and location with an Internet connection.

If MIG’s example is any indication, then Holiday Inn will definitely be cutting its paper usage down – by a significant amount. But “even if I didn’t save any paper,” Reitzes said, “I’m definitely saving time.”

About PaperSave

PaperSave is the first and only document management, electronic workflow and invoice automation solution, Certified for Dynamics GP 2013. PaperSave's unique integration provides one click access to documents related to the records within Microsoft Dynamics solutions like AX, GP, SL, & CRM. PaperSave combines document capture and transaction processing to eliminate multiple steps from your process saving time and money!

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