Learning to effectively collect debts, whether commercial (business-to-business) or consumer (debts owed by individuals) requires patience and diligence. The best debt collectors have honed their skills over years, learning what strategies tend to push debtors towards making payments. For new debt collectors who haven’t yet had time to develop their collection techniques, however, there are … Read more
While knowing when to send a past-due account to a collection agency is sometimes difficult, it is important to keep in mind that the sooner an agency has an account and can begin collecting on it, the more likely they are to successfully recover your money. There are multiple reasons to send a claim to … Read more
This was originally published by Dean Kaplan on InsideARM in September 2012 We’ve all heard hundreds of different stories as to why a business debt has not been paid. For our commercial collection agency, the first thing our debt collectors are trained to do is to figure out if it is a legitimate explanation or … Read more
While telephone is still the most effective way to communicate with debtors during a debt collection effort, other forms of correspondence including email can play an important role in a debt collector‘s efforts to contact a non-paying customer. When using email for collection purposes, it is important to follow some general guidelines to ensure your … Read more
As we’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, credit fraud is a fairly significant problem for many businesses across the country. A customer will place a large order with no intent to pay for it, and unless your credit department is diligent in their credit analysis of potential customers, you may be left with a large … Read more
One of the most important aspects of debt collection is knowing how to negotiate effectively with debtors. Learning to negotiate is not an easy process, and certainly requires practice, but anybody who’s already working as a debt collector has likely had time to develop their negotiation techniques to some extent at least. With this in … Read more
Anybody who’s worked in debt collection has probably had a debtor request either a payment plan or a settlement in order to take care of their delinquent account. While the best-case-scenario in debt collection is to receive a full payment on the unpaid balance, this simply isn’t possible in every case. Settlements and payment plans … Read more
During almost every debt collection effort, a debt collector can expect to hear at least one excuse from a debtor on why payment hasn’t been received already. While sometimes the debtor is being honest in their explanation, more often than not these excuses are employed as a means of delaying the collection process in hopes … Read more
If you’ve been reading our blog, you probably already saw our recent post with tips for debt collection. Today’s post will provide some more tips to help your collectors work more efficiently, allowing your business or collection agency to reap the greatest benefits from your collection efforts. Here’s some more advice for your debt collectors, … Read more
As every business owner knows, at some point the need for debt collection services (either by hiring a collection agency or having employees make collection calls during the work day) arises in every line of business. Customers stop paying, one of your clients is constantly late in making their payments, and other similar situations arise … Read more
As any business owner knows, no matter how well you analyze the credit reliability of potential customers, a time will come when some of them stop paying their bills. When this happens, businesses are left with a few options: they can simply cut their losses and cease future business with that customer, they can attempt … Read more
Whether you’re a debt collector or a business owner trying to get a customer to pay their bills, it is important to know how to negotiate effectively with debtors. Simply calling and demanding payments oftentimes will alienate a customer, especially if they have a reason for late payment. Here are some tips designed to help … Read more
When a business decides it is time to hire a collection agency, finding the debt collector that can do the job right can be stressful and confusing.The first step in this process requires a business owner to decide between contracting a consumer debt collection agency or a commercial collector. Without an understanding of the difference … Read more
As every business owner understands, dealing with customers that don’t pay their bills can be one of the most frustrating experiences of doing business. When customers do everything in their power to avoid paying their debts, sometimes it makes more sense to hire the services of a debt collection agency to convince the debtors to … Read more
When trying to recover unpaid bills from customers, it is very important to ensure the approach taken in your debt collection effort is neither too aggressive nor overly-lenient. In some cases, maintaining a positive relationship with the customer is desirable, and more care should be put into the collection approach used. However, when a customer … Read more
In any debt collection effort, a debt collector should be sure to take careful notes of anything discussed with a debtor. Even collectors with great memory and recall cannot be expected to remember everything they say when talking to a collector, and not keeping a record to refer back to leads to more wasted time … Read more
Most debt collection agencies rely heavily on phone calls to contact the debtors they are collecting from. Because phone communication plays such an important roll in debt collection, it is important for debt collectors to know how to communicate effectively by phone. Here are some basic tips that can greatly increase collection success: Know what … Read more
Every debt collector understands the frustration of dealing with a debtor who gives excuse after excuse to avoid paying their debts. It can be difficult to tell if a debtor is telling the truth or simply attempting to buy themselves time; however, there are some strategies debt collectors can employ to figure out what’s really … Read more
A recent blog post by The Business Finance Store offers tips for small business owners who are having issues with clients not paying for goods and services provided. The post advises small business owners to follow five steps in order to best resolve the issue and collect the money owed. Face the problem head-on and … Read more
An article posted recently called Fake collectors are trying to scare you into paying debts you don’t owe explains the rise in recent years of fake debt collectors attempting to scare Americans into paying debts they don’t owe. Just this year, federal authorities shut down two fake debt collection scams based in California, claiming they … Read more
