FLEXIBLE: Be ready to adjust to the situation. Think about the kind of customer youŽre dealing with and adapt to meet the circumstances. Be prepared to accept a reasonable payment schedule, and a willingness to deal with a customerŽs circumstances.
NOTES: Keep detailed, accurate notes of every contact with the customer. Probe for further information on the customer. Notes of these contacts will help you in subsequent phone calls, and may be invaluable in litigation. Good notes will also help in further credit decisions, or in cases where skip tracing may be needed.
PRODUCTIVE: Keep contact brief and to the point. This is a business call, not a social one. View your efforts on a ratio of time expended to results achieved. Long conversations probably mean the customer is stalling you, or trapping you in the buddy syndrome.
PRECISE: Never leave a contact open ended, such as "WeŽll talk next week," or "IŽll send what I can." Every contact should result in a commitment to payment, of a specific amount, by a specific date, even the check number the customer is using to pay the pledge.
TIME: The longer an account is held, the less likely it is that it will be recovered. If payment or a payout is not arranged within 90 days, place the claim with a collection agency or start legal proceedings.
PLACEMENT: Use only an agency that is a member of the American Collectors Association OR the Commercial Collection Agency Section of the Commercial Law League of America. This will insure that youŽre dealing with ethical professionals who are fully bonded to guarantee your remittance.
2. Ways to Improve Collections
OUTDATED BELIEF #4: Your Best Agents Should Call Your Toughest Customers.
Theoretically it seems logical to assign your best agents to call the toughest accounts, whether for collections or cross-sell. But, if this assumption is wrong, it means your best agents are being wasted on accounts where higher skills (and their associated higher salaries) have little impact.
