Should I opt for sales reminders by mail or telephone?
After having seen how to prepare your sales reminderWe thought it was important to remind you of the dunning methods available.
In fact, there are several ways to dun a customer for the payment of his bills.
We feel it’s important to remind you of the different solutions available for dunning your unpaid invoices.
As a general rule, telephone or postal reminders are the most widely used: find out more the advantages of these solutions and which one to choose.
Why send by mail?
A common solution is to send a reminder letter.
You can first send a simple letter to your customer, then a letter with acknowledgement of receipt in the event of non-return.
The advantages of mailing your customers
- Inexpensive: it can be done by ordinary mail, by e-mail or even by SMS, this type of reminder only requires software.
- Automated (software): allows you to send out reminders to large numbers of customers using specialized software.
It serves as a sufficient reminder for customers who have failed to pay the invoice, avoiding the need for dialogue. - Customizable (customer-specific): send simple reminders to low-risk customers.
The disadvantages of mailing
It can be seen as inefficient, as the customer doesn’t feel compelled to respond.
Email is a practical system, as it’s inexpensive and relatively automatic, but the acceptance and success rate of the reminder is fairly low.
Works best with low-risk, “head-in-the-sand” customers.
By dint of receiving letters and emails, debtors become accustomed to them, and the impact of dunning is reduced.
Optimize your follow-up mailings
Avoid overdoing it, and limit yourself to one or two simple reminders.
Then in 2 th or 3rdth mail, insert a header in the mail, e.g. “Avis de mise en recouvrement”, using a professional professional dunning service such as SoftCollect from SSPCOLLECT to get your debtor to react.
SoftCollect takes care of sending out headed reminders, and you collect the sums due directly.
You keep control of your files and only pay for the mail.
Speed up your collections with our invoice dunning platform!
Why opt for telephone reminders?
Telephone reminders are one of the most effective and proven methods of invoice reminders.
It has definite advantages and few disadvantages, or limitations that can be overcome.
Advantages of telephone reminders
The main advantages of telephone follow-up are immediate dialogue with the customer who will naturally be cooperative and trusting.
It’s an opportunity to shed light on any sticking points.
Telephone reminders also make exchanges more fluid, and thus quickly identify types of non-payment:
- Unpaid amounts due to bad faith or oversight ;
- Voluntary unpaid bills linked to technical or commercial disputes ;
- Unintentional non-payment due to the company’s financial situation.
Pick up the phone identify the right contact person, and understand the company’s invoice processing procedure. For example, large companies and public bodies have long and tedious invoice-processing circuits, sometimes veritable labyrinths.
Visit telephone reminders are essential for risky customers whose delays are linked to financial difficultiesIn this way, dunning is used to exert pressure to prioritize payment and anticipate the risk of insolvency proceedings or suspension of payments.
Last but not least, they are ideal for strategic, sensitive customers, to maintain good business relations.
Disadvantages of telephone reminders
For telephone follow-up, you’ll need a qualified customer base with up-to-date contact details in order to reach the right person.
Telephone follow-up must be carried out by qualified people trained in commercial negotiation.
It requires time, empathy, adaptability and interpersonal skills.
In some cases, outsourcing to a service provider will be the best way to make your unpaid invoice dunning profitable.
It’s worth noting that, although more expensive than in-house or postal dunning, outsourcing shows much higher acceptance rates than normal.
Call back your BtoB and BtoC customers with our telephone reminder service!
Which solution should you choose for your invoice reminder?
The telephone reminder seems to be the most effective systemBut it can’t be done systematically by the company itself.
If you have a large volume of unpaid invoices to manage, outsourcing to a service like SSPCollect’s “Collectel” will be your best bet.
The ideal goal is to set up a process combining written, e-mail and telephone reminders taking care to intensify the impact on customers.
So it’s important to follow a rigorous, gradual and proportionate sequence.
The most important thing is credibility of the steps taken, and you need to be quick from reminder to formal notice.Depending on the type of customer and invoice (small amounts, large accounts/public bodies, risky/non-risky customers, civil or commercial receivables), you’ll need to adapt your scenarios.For BtoB receivables, cross-referencing information with a commercial and financial information service is perfectly suited to reminders. Our partner Infolégale offers solvency reports that can be used to qualify and prioritize actions to be taken.
C t’s not always the amount you need to prioritize.
Optimize your sales reminders by outsourcing this service, enabling you to concentrate on higher value-added tasks.