Yet through obstacles like these, you gain valuable learnings and insights into consumer behaviour, your market, and business in general.
One area where you may run into hurdles is during debt recovery.
Healthy cash flow is instrumental to running a successful business, with the power to turn a struggling operation into a happy one.
In this blog, we explore some of the biggest obstacles that businesses run into during debt recovery.
Small businesses are known for moving quickly to try and hit the ground running. Often this comes at the expense of critical details, such as setting up a clear and streamlined way of doing things that everyone in the organisation can follow.
Taking the time to create internal processes and communicate these clearly with your team will ensure everyone is singing from the same song sheet.
It is also important to build and clearly communicate your external policies with customers, such as payment terms and cancellation policies so that there are no gaps in the system and everyone is clear and happy with the arrangement.
What can you do about it?
Another common small business debt recovery problem is not having the time to follow up debts, despite the best intentions.
It can be easy to procrastinate because you are either too busy or would honestly rather be doing something other than chasing your customers for debt collection. The days and hours after a debt falls overdue are critical.
We should also remember that trying to do everything yourself is often not the most productive use of your time. If you are not adequately resourced for prompt debt collection, now is the time to sort it out.
What can you do about it?
It can be uncomfortable having tricky conversations, especially if it’s not part of your everyday practise. There is also the added worry of potentially damaging relationships and losing rapport with your customers, which many find a challenge of debt collection.
It is also common within small business to lack experience in conflict management or not be fluent in the type of language to use. Many of our small debt collection clients describe the feeling of having ‘put their foot in it’ when it comes to their debt recovery conversations and have felt relieved once they have handed over the problem to EC Credit Control’s team to navigate.
What can you do about it?
The reality is that your customers and their businesses may be declared insolvent without much warning. While customer bankruptcy is not an everyday occurrence, it is especially relevant to consider in the context of today’s COVID-19 pandemic and economic environment and can be particularly painful if you have customers with large balances owing.
Whatever the reasons small business fail, if this has happened you will want to ensure your chance of debt recovery is as strong as possible.
What can you do about it?
If your business sells to a large number of customers and offers them credit terms, often the sheer scale of your customer base can be the biggest debt collection challenge your small business faces.
With more people to follow up, it can become really hard work to reconcile your payments and keep track of all the outstanding debts. In our experience, this often results in customers and invoices slipping between the cracks, either by forgetting to firstly invoice them or failing to realise they have fallen behind and following up.
Whether you run an accountancy practice or a lawnmowing business, you are going to want to effectively manage each customer on your books with care.
What can you do about it?
These are just a couple of things you can implement within your business.
If you are noticing changes in a customer’s payment behaviour, we can help. Let’s chat through your options in more detail.
Fill in your details and your Business Support Specialist will be in touch within the day to arrange a suitable time to catch up.
John Pohl21. March, 2024.EC Credit Control gets the job done. Zeta is always helpful...Josh Horton29. February, 2024.I was in a spot of bother with an old account that was still active. This was causing an issue for a loan and was very time critical. I was able to reach Tanya after hours and she not only helped me through sorting it out but followed up to make sure I was being looked after first thing the next morning. Very impressed with Tanya's support and the speed of EC Credit Control.Carissa Taylor14. February, 2024.As a new Accounts employee, this was my first time dealing with EC Credit and they were a breeze. I have called Monika for the smallest of questions and she has been most helpful. I didn't know we could contact them and ask for the advice that I have. I would highly recommend them. Carissa - Navace Pty LtdCaroline Burnett12. February, 2024.Tanya is super helpful and extremely professional with a great sense of humour. She really understands what we need for our business. Highly recommend!! ????☺️nick fish9. February, 2024.Due to the fast growth of our business and increasing size dollar value size of our orders it was obvious we needed to tighten our trade legality terms to ensure the safety of our assets be they business or personal liabilities. After some positive interactions with Chris last year we decided to meet up with EC just last week to discuss. The information presented was concise and explained brilliantly making it simple for us to understand our current requirements and what to do next. We now have robust documentation to get paid on-time & in-full. Confident for future products with less stress.”ENL Property Management2. February, 2024.We have been dealing with Ec for at least 5 years and can not recommend enough.Robert Turner11. January, 2024.Fantastic company to get your business trading terms up to date Tanya Pascoe is a fantastic Rep and supplies a good follow up service for questions and answers. I would Highly recommend the EC Credit team to any business.Google rating score: 4.4 of 5, based on 119 reviews
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