- A fairly new (less than a year) customer does not respond to invoices, statements or letters. For some unknown reason the customer will not or cannot pay. You can keep your losses down by placing an account like this for collection sooner than later.
- Your payment terms fail. In some cases irresponsible customers pay when and if they want to. This group is responsible for 25-50 percent of the cost of collections. Determine the customers who may play payment games with you and get rid of them.
- The customer is making repetitious, unfounded complaints. Make sure you have the documentation to support the debt and place them for collection. Spend your time with customers that order consistently, pay on time and deserve your attention.
- The customer starts denying responsibility for the debt. Without professional collection help, these accounts are time consuming to you and your business.
- The customer has marital difficulties. It has been my experience personally and professionally that delinquency goes along with marital problems. In this situation your best bet is to quickly place the account with an agency before the problems get worse or the disappearance of one or both of the responsible parties. People start getting separated and moving, mail starts getting returned and phone numbers change. Let an agency locate the customers and do the collection work for you to resolve the debt as quickly as possible.
- Starting a pattern of paying late, it may start slowly and then the balances owed will become later and larger.
- Frequent address and/or phone number changes.
- Frequent changes in their job, where and when they work, how much they make.
Michelle Dunn is a 24-year debt collection industry veteran, entrepreneur, award winning author, self-syndicated columnist, one of the Top 5 Women in Collections and one of the Top 50 most influential collection professionals in her industry. She is available at Michelle Dunn | PO Box 40 | Plymouth | NH | 03264.
Current Issue - May 2024