Commitment & meticulous follow-up is important.

Do you do empty threats

How often do you find yourself telling your clients, “This is your final warning” or something similar? I’m willing to wager it’s a common occurrence, especially when future sales are at stake.

But let’s get back to basics. The most effective way to handle collections is through direct human interaction. A simple phone call to discuss payment, conducted with politeness, sincerity, and brevity.

This is your relationship builder.

Draw the commitment.

When making these calls, it’s crucial to solicit a clear promise or response from the client. Equally important is your commitment to follow up, whether it’s to monitor a payment or schedule a follow-up regarding their inquiries. Consistency is key here. If you say you’ll call on a certain date, you must follow through. Likewise, if a payment isn’t received by the promised date, follow up promptly.

Clients take cues from your actions as you build your customer relationship management (CRM) database. If they see that you consistently honor your commitments, they’re more likely to do the same to the best of their ability. Keeping meticulous diary notes, maintaining a regular schedule for reminders and statements, are additional tools that reinforce to your clients that you are reliable and will always follow up as promised.

I am not saying it will happen instantly but due to human nature it will happen on most occasions, there is always an outlier who bucks the system and will dig in. They want to feel that they maintain the upper hand.  Then it’s time to regroup and change either the way you connect on a personal level or within the team have another member try to create the relationship.

Be committed to setting up a follow up in an accounts receivable system you can rely on and follow through on those commitments. By following a transparent interaction process and engaging the management (refer to Managements role) in the collection methodology you’re more likely to have backing when the time comes to more stringent enforcement.

This is an interesting read on financial tools. Read it here

This is where personal interaction, and the use of a dedicated solution crosses.

This focus and meticulous follow-through will give you additional time as the process will breed better processes both for you and your clients over time.

Ian Hindle

Having fallen by accident into credit management as a 20year old, like it appears many of us did, I progressed through many solid companies, in no particular order, TNT, Aus Post, Budget Car Rental, Seek, Brivis, Recall, Iron Mountain and many that I have forgotten. During the progression of roles I realized the need for a quality product but i felt that none existed, so my last role is with Kuhlekt. I had continually, through consultancies, delivered results that provided clear benefits to the organisations cash flow or communications programs. Whilst the results are the end game the way we get there is extremely important.

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