One of the things starting a business might not prepare you for is how to chase your customers to recover your debts. Starting out as a small business, there might be times when you allow customers to pay for an item later.
Sometimes, the process of recovering these debts can take time and effort especially when you encounter customers who are not willing to pay back. For an SME business, you need every cash that can come into the enterprise. That is why you need to put up measures to help you get your money from debtors.
There are times when these debtors might be suppliers who have outstanding items to send to you.
Here are 5 ways to recover debts;
1. Send a friendly payment reminder
This seems like the first step to making any of your customers pay their due debts. Sometimes, the customer might have forgotten that they owe. So sending reminders like this can help keep them in the loop and nudge them to pay up.
To make this procedure seamless, Kashbuk helps you take a record of every transaction customers make without full payment. From your debts page, you can send reminders to each customer either as text or WhatsApp messages. These reminders can be scheduled and automated. The end goal is that you recover all your debts and save time.
2. Negotiate a payment package
So that you don’t write off your debts as bad debts, you can have a talk with customers about how convenient it can be for them to pay back. Having that negotiation can assist your customers to be diligent with the payback and also help your business recover the debts.
This pattern of debt recovery helps you maintain a good relationship with such customers. To an extent, it can help you build customers’ trust and loyalty. One more thing you might want to take care of is ensuring that customers keep to the payment plan.
3. Have a conversation
Patience is a virtue that every small business owner needs. Because you need to recover your debts, taking rash measures might end up not yielding a favorable result. So before escalating the issue, you can take an extra effort to give the customer a call or visit if possible.
At this point, you get to know the state of their mind towards the repayment. If they are willing to pay back or not and the condition surrounding that.
Your call or presence can also be a message to the customer to pay up their debt.
4. Take a record of all your debts and repayment
Once a customer agrees to repay whether in full or part payment, you need to update your debt record for that customer. This will be very needed, especially for customers who agree to make the payment in bits till it is cleared. This will save you the stress of how much of the debt is yet to be covered.
To help you achieve this, Kashbuk has a feature for updating payments as customers repay. This helps you keep track of an individual’s repayment.
5. Use debt recovery services
If you can get access to legal measures to recover debts especially when the amount involved is a huge one, you might need to go for this option when all others are exhausted.
Debt recovery services are readily available to help you get your money from customers who are not willing to pay back. What you need to do is to find a reputable debt recovery service that you are satisfied with their terms and conditions of service.
This measure should be your last resort so that you keep your relationship with customers. But in cases that are extreme, you might need to play this card.
