Service Firms

The "service industry" describes a broad range of enterprises - from lawyers, doctors and dentists to computer repair and janitorial services - at its core, service organizations have a great deal in common. As the manager of a service provider, you must:

• Allocate resources for service delivery
• Record the service in detail
• Invoice the customer
• Record payment

Essentially, it is simple - yet the details make it complex, especially when your business has grown beyond the point when you are close to every customer. When you have expanded to departments - front desk, customer service, sales, service staff, payables and receivables - your customers still expect personalized, efficient service.

To do this efficiently, and keep listening and responding to customers rather than getting bogged down in paperwork, you need excellent business applications. If you're still using point products, your silos of information are creating barriers to efficient data access. They're slowing you down, costing you money as well as time, and could be losing you customers.