Try the “personal appeal” approach when all standard reminders, emails, phone calls (from your “accounts department”) and even letters of demand fail to get payment from slow paying debtors.
It ALWAYS works IF the clients “intent” to pay is there. How do you find out if the client intends to pay or not? Simple. If the client doesn’t respond to this approach then he either doesn’t care, can’t or won’t pay or you have the wrong address. (Or he died!) His non-response to your personal appeal means that it must be one of those.
Would this approach influence YOU to contact your
creditor if it was you who owed the debt?”.
This is the approach.
By email or letter (speak the good news, write the bad news)
This client had invoices outstanding since Oct 2010!
The result of that email is that he agreed to pay half now and half next month.
Why does it work so well?
It
- is friendly.
- comes from the person that the debtor has a working relationship with
- states the facts
- blames something else for having to chase up the debt (Always be the Good Guy)
- It offers an ‘out”, a repayment offer, that allows the client to “save face“
Try it, but only after the debtor has been “softened” up by your normal account collection processes first.
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