RHR INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY BY COMMUNICATING IN VERJI!

When it comes to the company’s future plans, Anita says they still aim to grow a bit more. At the same time, they are clear that they do not want to become a traditional ‘big accounting firm’ that loses the closeness they have with their customers.

In their customer communication, Ringerike & Hadeland Regnskapsservice has been using Verji for almost two years. Before implementing Verji, they used encrypted email from Microsoft, and there were three main reasons why they decided to change this.

• Firstly, they wanted a higher level of security than email, especially to avoid false payment instructions, known as CEO fraud. They have firsthand experience with this after receiving an email from a client with payment instructions. After a few emails back and forth to clarify details related to the transaction, the accountant noticed that the client’s wording was different than usual. She suspected something was wrong and called the client. It turned out that the client was at the cabin, her email had been hacked, and it was the hacker communicating with the accounting firm.
• The second reason was that they wanted to comply with the Data Inspectorate’s requirements that businesses must facilitate encrypted receipt of communication containing personal information. This applies when customers, on their own initiative, need to send information to the business.
• The third reason was related to increased productivity associated with efficient collaboration. Anita says that probably few of us today would send emails to friends and family to collaborate on, for example, next summer’s vacation. Most would probably use group communication in Facebook Messenger or similar systems because the interaction becomes much more efficient than sending emails back and forth. Anita questioned why they shouldn’t have the same efficiency at work. She sees Verji as the business equivalent of “Facebook Messenger,” with the difference that it has only invited and verified users, is free of spam and advertisements, and has the administrative, security, and customization options needed for work. RHR has created a structure in Verji where each customer has different rooms related to different subject areas. For example, a room for payments, a room for payroll, a room for accounting, and a room for auditing. The individual employees involved in the different topics participate in relevant rooms together with the person(s) from the customer. This organization increases productivity, where an example is that the customer participates in the room with the auditor and can follow the communication the accountant has with the auditor. This saves time on updating the customer. Another example is that typically three employees participate in customer rooms where one employee is responsible for the room while the other two turn off notifications for the room. When the person responsible for the room is on vacation or sick, it’s easy for one of the other two to turn on notifications for the room and continue the tasks. This significantly streamlines compared to when customers sent emails to individuals.

When asked about how it was to get started with Verji, Anita said the following. It actually went quite smoothly, although there was some resistance from customers initially regarding dealing with “yet another platform.” It took some time before customers found it natural to send to us on Verji, so we set up a link on our website directly to Verji to make it easy for customers.

When customers initially forgot and sent, for example, payroll information via email, we responded to the customer’s email and asked them to send the payroll information on Verji so that we could start the payroll process. We did not confirm receipt of the payroll information until it was received in Verji. Regarding support, Anita experiences quick responses; however, they find Verji so intuitive that they haven’t contacted support many times.

Verji’s mobile app is frequently used by employees to quickly respond to inquiries. Among customers, there is a divide: some love the mobile app and use it actively, for example, by taking pictures of receipts for expenses directly in the accounting room, while others prefer to communicate from their PC during office hours.

In summary, Anita says that one of the most important aspects of Verji is the low threshold for customers to get started. We compare Verji to Messenger when introducing the system to customers. We find that customers are fine with the same setup as Messenger, where we create groups and communicate in those groups.