Since debt recovery can become a very tedious task, automation undoubtedly provides solutions to ease the headaches that come with the territory. We’ve all at one point or the other heard some crazy story surrounding the lengths at which debt collectors will go to recover outstanding monies from debtors. Business owners will say that one of the most painstaking business processes surrounds recovering debt simply because it is time-consuming and takes away their attention from focusing on selling. Sadly, delinquent customers are often indifferent towards clearing arrears and do not find this to be a priority. By setting delinquency notifications in your accounting software, this can help to track debt before it goes bad.
It is often left up to a company’s accounting staff to find creative ways to collect from customers before having to resort to soliciting the services of debt collection agencies or legal intervention. One can only hope that if companies outsource their debt collection to recovery agencies, this doesn’t further push said companies into incurring even more debt. An alternative to this comes through scheduled payment reminders such as SMS texts and emails. Automated Sms texts can also be sent via a debt collection auto dialer software to follow-up with debtors who are unreachable via a telephone call. With texts and emails, you have direct access to customers which will in turn diminish the costs that come with your monthly phone bill.
Consider encouraging your customers to opt for subscription billing. You will be better able to structure your business through the automation of your sales process via the acquisition of a nimble and secure billing software. Customers are notified about upcoming and/or outstanding payments automatically, which saves you the hassle of having to do this yourself or employing persons to do this for you. This helps to improve processing efficiency by automating outgoing invoices to customers. Most billing software come enabled with solid and reliable reporting features which will also help you with your auditing exercises.
Investing in a good customer-relationship management software will help you to reduce many clerical tasks including, but not limited to, collections and the creation of multiple spreadsheets to track customer and sales activities. This adds value by creating more time to focus on sales follow-ups. The software will also speed up the flow of communication for everyone since users will have access to real-time information about customers which boosts responsiveness and fosters an environment for customers to enjoy a world-class customer experience.
By integrating your payment collection with your website, this opens more convenient payment channels for your customers and better positions you with increased opportunities to collect payments anywhere and at anytime. This is very integral when considering your business’ ability to scale in order to compete globally. An e-commerce enabled website positions your company to do business with customers long after your business has closed its doors.