Your customers aren’t robots – they are individuals, each with a unique set of circumstances. A respectful and personalized approach to collecting debt can help maintain the customer relationship.
Traditional collection techniques are all about showing you the money. In debt recovery, the numbers have always mattered; businesses care about how much is collected on past due receivables and how quickly. This benchmark of successful debt collections hasn’t changed in decades.
What has changed are the techniques we use to improve your A/R. It’s imperative that services like Rocket Receivables take collecting debt to a more customer-centric level. Our effort to collect on your past due payments must emphasize respectful techniques that consider the customer experience at every touch point.
This article will help you understand why debt collection must include customer service in efforts to collect on your debt.
Debt Recovery – Finessing the Customer Relationship
Most markets are so competitive and margins so tight, you can’t afford to lose a single customer. Old school collection techniques were heavy-handed one-size fits all efforts to collect – no matter what. These practices were, at best, aggressive, and at worse, at risk of breaking federal compliance laws.
These approaches just don’t work anymore. Federal and state laws now carefully regulate collecting debt practices. But what has really changed is the scrutiny that can come from social media. A debt recovery agency that utilizes an old-fashioned big stick approach runs the risk of damaging your reputation – and the last thing any business needs is going viral for all the wrong reasons.
But is it possible to have a “kinder and gentler” collections process that is still effective?
Our answer is a resounding, “Yes.”
What if you could strengthen the customer relationship even during the process of debt collection?
Personalized Debt Recovery
We’ve found that technology can streamline and improve debt recovery efforts in a way that builds the customer relationship. Creating a personalized experience tailored to the individual client means we’re able to determine up front the likelihood that the past due balances even stand a chance of being collected. Having a customer that has been out of work for the past year versus a customer who was on vacation and forgot to pay their bill are two entirely different situations that require different approaches to debt recovery.
Also, if the collection agency is too aggressive with a customer that regularly pays, it could damage the long-term relationship with your company.
At Rocket Receivables, even past due customers have options. For example, having an online payments portal where customers can make payments may be preferable to having a potentially embarrassing conversation with a real person. Why not use that online option as a way for customers to make things right while reaching them in a way they appreciate?
Today, debt collection has a new set of business best practices that focus not just on your bottom line but also on keeping a respectful long-term relationship with your customers. Designing customized approaches for customers that need to catch back up is something that we’ve found is beneficial to your business reputation. It’s a win/win – past due balances are collected and you keep your customer relationship intact.
To request info on our service, please get in touch.
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