Optimize your customer reminders

Summary:

1. What is a customer reminder?
2. Best practices for re-contacting a customer:
   1. Personalize your messages:
   2. Grading the importance of messages:
   3. Follow all of its customers:
   4. Simplify payment:
3. Automate your customer reminders with a collection software:

 

L’he optimization of the customer reminder is today a key action for all companies that wish to limit the risks of risks of unpaid invoices. A customer risk that could result in a cash deficit. And which sometimes, are the cause of a cessation of activity.

To prevent this, it is necessary to apply a daily follow-up of its customers, namely a credit management. It’s a real investment.

It is advisable to invest this dunning management as soon as possible, especially from the start of the company.

 

What is a customer reminder?

The customer reminder consists in contacting its customers in order to optimize the collection of the company. A good dunning management allows :

• To reduce its customer payment delay (DSO),
• To maintain the financial health of the company,
• To avoid cash flow,

Contrary to popular belief, the customer reminder is not only used within the framework of a
late payment
. It can also be used to courteously notify the customer of the next deadline.

The reminders can take different forms, such as an SMS, a message on social networks, an e-mail, a phone call, a letter, a registered letter.

The method often depends on the degree of importance of the customer reminder and the proximity with the customer.

It is generally customary to start with an e-mail and to close your reminders with a registered letter.

In the event of a late paymentthe objective is to remind the customer that he must pay his invoice quickly.

This reminder allows us to engage in a dialogue to understand the reason for the delay.

In the case of a payment reminderthe reminder allows the customer to make arrangements to pay the invoice in a timely manner.

 

Best practices for re-contacting a customer:

How do you set up a reminder system that works? What mistakes should be avoided? We explain everything with some good practices to use to save time.

 

Personalize your messages:

The first good practice is to personalize your message with variables. The name and surname of the customer, the customer number, the company name, the address, the VAT number, the SIREN and SIRET numbers, as well as the amount of the invoice.

But not only that, you can add more personal variables that affect your customer relationship. We could talk aboutIce Breaker in English. A phrase or several that can bring your email and your reminder together and make it feel like a natural fit.

Why is this important? In the case of a late payment or of a reminderThe objective of your reminder is to lead to the payment of your invoice.

The customer must therefore feel concerned by your reminders. Here is an example of a dunning email prepared by Aston AI (which offers a collection solution):

___

COMPANY : [[CustomerName]]

CUSTOMER NUMBER: [[CustomerClientCode]]

[[CurrentDate]]

[[SignatoryCompanyCity]]

Madam, Sir,

Except for errors or omissions on our part, the examination of your account shows that the payment of the invoices listed in the joint statement of account has not reached us.

Total balance due to us : [[CustomerInvoicingExpiredOutstandingAmount]]

We thank you for regularizing this situation as soon as we receive this letter.

We are convinced that this is a simple oversight and we would like to assure you, Madam, Sir, of our best consideration.

[[SignatoryFirstName]] [[SignatoryLastName]]

Collection Department

[[SignatoryEmail]]

[[SignatoryPhoneNumber]]

[[CompanyLogo]]

 

If your payment was made upon receipt of this email, please disregard this reminder and accept our apologies.

 

Grading the importance of messages:

Personalizing emails is great, but being able to scale them with the help of a typical customer journey brings more performance to your collection campaigns.

What if the client does not respond to my first message? How many messages should I send?

You need to create scenarios in which email scaling is applied. For example, a e-mail reminder a few days before the due date to notify the customer of the next payment. The objective is to raise early to avoid to avoid a possible oversight.

A second reminder on the day. Then, in case he still hasn’t paid his bill, new and firmer reminders by e-mail and by phone.

In this case, one should not hesitate to have a multi-channel multi-channel approach. This will help you increase the chances of recovery.

If your client has not responded to your correspondence, you can consider registered mail, then an amicable collection procedure, and finally a legal proceedings.

 

Follow all of its customers:

This collection method works if you apply it to all your customers. What does this mean?

This means that if you do it for one of the bad payersyou must apply the collection method to all bad payers.

Indeed, what credibility would you have if you paid only a tiny part of your client receivables. Beyond the fact that it could seriously damage your cash flow.

You are therefore obliged to keep track of all your customers to maintain your reputation and reduce your DSO.

If not, companies might think that the quality of the offer or service you deliver is not up to par, or that you can’t afford to pay.

 

Simplify payment:

Any dunning is actionable if it remains simple. Your goal is to recover your accounts receivable. You must make it easy for your customers to do business with you. Especially if they have trouble paying your bills on time. This is a principle that must be kept in mind. You must therefore set up a simple payment solution.

For example, a payment link by Credit Card could be included in your e-mail. If you choose a bank transfer solution, you must clearly display your company’s bank details.

Your customer must find all the information he needs immediately, and if possible complete the transaction with as little action as possible.

Our partner Paykrom can accelerate the collection of your invoices online: this solution is reliable, fast and secure. In a few clicks, your customer will have the choice of the payment method (payment link or direct debit) and will receive a link immediately by email or sms. The advantage of this solution: you take care of your customer relations while ensuring the payment of your invoice.

Discover Paykrom: the professional account designed to simplify the daily life of entrepreneurs. Its flagship feature: Online collection by payment link: it has never been so easy to get paid by card or direct debit! The must-have? The Business Mastercard for unlimited spending. What about customer service? The consultants are committed to responding to all requests within one hour (working days).

At Paykrom, forget mystery fees: transparency is the name of the game! The offer starts at 2€/month and without commitment. Today, more than 10,000 companies have adopted it to manage their business and optimize their cash flow. The Pro account is rated Excellent on Trustpilot.

Tempted? You have 30 days of free trial and it is without commitment.

Automate your customer reminders with a collection software:

It is not always easy to keep track of your customers. And it’s often more complicated to follow up on his raises.

Aston AI is a
collection software
that automates and customizes customer customer reminders through a multi-channel approach, analyzes the customer riskand offers a payment linkas well as an automatic invoicing system displays a customer dashboard to follow in real time all its customers, …