Preventing 3rd Party Placements & Improving Customer Service

Preventing 3rd Party Placements & Improving Customer Service

Preventing 3rd Party Placements & Improving Customer Service

Jim Fritz

Does it seem counterintuitive that a third party collection agency salesperson would talk about preventing clients from placing accounts for collections?  This is just one of those areas where Receivables Control is unique.  We believe we’ll have happier clients if we help clients reduce placements through more effective internal practices.  We have yet to find a client that isn’t interested in reducing their placements and their bad debt expense.

Do you want to reduce placements and resolve more accounts -in-house?

  • Set Deadlines:  Customers respond to deadlines.  Open-ended payment arrangements are an invitation for high delinquency.  Collectors create urgency through deadlines.  Effective collectors are creative.  Consider this simple example:  early in a month, a passive collector may allow a customer to promise payment for the end of the month.  However, an assertive collector can get an immediate payment by telling the customer, “I know you would like to pay at the end of the month; however, we have a Friday review of accounts over 60 days and yours is up this week.  I don’t want your account to go to collections”.  Give me the creative, assertive collector; they win every time!  Setting deadlines works.
  • Timely Follow Up:  Whether it is following up on a broken promise or following up on a resolution to a dispute, make sure your collectors use short follow up times.  Follow up communication is most effective when it coincides immediately with a broken promise.  If your collectors are lax in follow up they are training your customers to pay slowly and on the customer terms, not yours.  Timely follow up applies to both internal and external customers!
  • Avoid Lengthy Research Projects:  When is the last time you reviewed your dispute resolution process?  Review your resolution process and shorten your internal response times at every step.  Cut your process by weeks, days, or hours and see your collection and resolution rates increase!  It will help you collect money faster, improve customer service, and you won’t have to look at a cluttered aging, month after month.

I can sum it up in a word, urgency.  Urgency will help you collect cash more quickly and it will help you solve problems without having to watch them age to oblivion.

Jim Fritz is the Vice President of Sales for Receivables Control.  Jim can be reached at 763 315 9631 and his email is jfritz@rccmn.com