Have you ever heard this one before from one of your past due customers: “The check is in the mail”? What do you do when you hear that?
Sure, you can ask them to fax you a copy of the check, but what if it doesn’t show up? Then they blame the mail for being slow, or someone forgot to sign the check so they couldn’t send it out when they were supposed to and now you will have to wait even longer for your check – or do you?
If your customer has broken several promises for payment and the check never shows up, you may need to change tactics and find out if they are really trying to pay the bill or not, and here is how:
One technique we use in the industry is asking the customer to commit to a payment, then asking when they can have the check ready the next day, so that we may arrange for pick up either through a service such as Fed Ex, UPS or through some other means.
In order to remain in control, we pick the check up rather than allowing the customer to mail the check so that there can’t be any reason that it doesn’t happen. If the customer claims they don’t have the funds to pay right now, it’s a great idea to ask them when they can pay and ask them to prepare a post-dated check for that date.
By getting the customer to agree to have the check ready at a scheduled time for pick up, you can know quickly if your customer has intentions of paying the bill or if it’s just another excuse. This also commits the customer to a plan that both parties can work with to resolve the issue, and you can get a check the next day and not just another broken promise.
If your customer won’t agree to let you pick up the check, it might be a good time to call your collections agency because this customer may be in more trouble than you realize.
