Telephone Dunning Skills-World Credit Organization

4.5 Telephone dunning skills

Before or during the debt collection procedure of the ICE8000 international credit standard system, some telephone collection techniques can be combined, and we will introduce some below.

4.5.1 The POWER rule of telephone reminder

The POWER standard is the law of recovery summed up by the famous American Dun & Bradstreet Enterprise Credit Management Company, namely: Preparation\Clear and firm intention (OpenStrongly), work for problems (Work with Objections), communication End with Commitment, React Quickly for Broken Promise. This rule summarizes the precautions in chasing accounts very succinctly, and it is worth learning from.

1. Preparation

Enterprises have to do a lot of preparatory work for debt recovery, mainly in two aspects: one is familiarity with relevant contract documents; the other is familiarity with the situation before and after recovery. Among them, well-prepared documents are the basis for recovery. If the company has sufficient proof of creditor's rights, it is itself a deterrent to defaulting customers. On the contrary, if the company's creditor's rights documents are incomplete or even lost, it will bring a lot of trouble to recover, and it will also give unscrupulous customers an opportunity to try their own methods, leading to fraud in arrears of payment.

Here is a real example. A lighting wholesaler in Tianjin sold nearly 100,000 yuan worth of goods on credit to a home improvement company. When the repayment was approaching, the decoration company heard from the staff of the wholesaler that the delivery note for this transaction could not be found. From the receiver's point of view, without the delivery note, there is no way to prove that the transaction occurred. Therefore, the decoration company finds various reasons to delay the repayment. After the wholesaler learned of this situation, they used their tricks and asked the employees to continue to pursue payment, but avoided mentioning the delivery order. This move made the decoration company even more convinced that the wholesaler had lost the delivery order. In the final stage, the decoration company's attitude became tough, denying the transaction and payment. But contrary to expectations, the wholesaler submitted a delivery note to the public security department and charged the public security department with suspected fraud. In this case, the necessity of establishing customer profiles is illustrated.

Another preparatory work is the collection staff's familiarity with the process and key issues. Every successful debt collection call is based on a lot of preparatory work by the telephone collection personnel. In order to ensure that the calls in just a few minutes can achieve the desired results, the telephone collection personnel must carefully read the customer files, recall the scene of the last collection, summarize the experience of the last collection, analyze the case, and plan the method of talking with the debtor. and an outline of what has to be said. Otherwise, it will give customers a reason to continue to procrastinate because they do not understand a detail.

Second, clear and firm intention (OpenStrongly)

It means clearly and firmly expressing the intention to collect money. Regardless of whether it is a phone call or a door-to-door recovery, the recovery personnel must clearly and firmly express the collection intention, express the company's management system to the customer, let the customer understand that the sales company is a company with a very high management level, and explain The company's attitude and policy on recovering arrears. Experience has shown that often the tone and attitude with which a call begins can determine the course of events. If the phone call reminders speak casually, customers will deal with it casually, and at the same time, it will damage the professional image of the phone call call reminders and the quality of the company they represent.

3. Work with Objections

During the collection process, the debtor may raise various obstacles, such as: product service or quality problems, as an excuse for non-repayment. Excellent money collectors either cooperate with product service personnel or quickly explain to the debtor, which will quickly remove these obstacles, thus buying time for the debtor to make a repayment commitment.

4. Commitment before the end of communication (End with Commitment)

Confirm the customer's commitment to pay before closing the collection activity. In many cases, the debt collectors communicate with the debtor for a long time, and the two parties understand each other very well, but the debtor has no promise after the call. Such calls are also ineffective, with no commitment to make any basis for the next conversation and having to start all over again. Therefore, the telephone collection personnel must express the promise of payment in a solemn tone, and clearly explain the amount owed, the time in arrears, and the promise obtained during the last reminder in a simple and logical manner. In short, before the end of each telephone communication, the debtor must leave their substantive commitment to the resolution of the problem, even if it is a staged progress.

In this process, the account collectors must pay attention to certain methods. Its essentials include: trying to talk to the debtor's decision-maker, concise opening remarks, appropriate attitude, skillful refutation of various excuses and excuses, and trying to win the other party's commitment to arrange payment as soon as possible. Dealing with all kinds of excuses and refusals is the most basic training for telephone reminders. An appropriate attitude means that the bill collectors always maintain a dominant position in the conversation, and the attitude should make the arrears customers feel oppressed, forcing the arrears customers to make a repayment promise or make a clear statement.

5. React Quickly for Broken Promise

During the dunning process, if the customer continues to miss appointments, the dunning staff should respond quickly. Practice has proved that the faster the response, the more attention the debtor will pay. At the same time, the collection personnel must always be aware that their work represents the company, and every decision must be serious, keep what they say, and keep their promises.

Enterprises should also give sufficient decision-making power to the debtors within a certain range, keep their promises to debtors, and strictly implement warnings or ultimatums to debtors. Otherwise, the debtor will think that the collection personnel do not have any authority, and will not pay attention to their warnings, which will undoubtedly cause obstacles to the collection personnel's future work.

4.5.2 Edward's Five "Golden Rules"

Edward, a famous British credit management expert, once summed up the five "golden rules" of telephone reminders, namely:

1. Use your opening remarks to win the attention of customers;

Second, talk to each other in a positive and trusting way, not in a critical way;

Third, save as much face as possible for customers;

Fourth, if the sales company you represent makes a mistake, admit it frankly;

Five, overcome the customer's refusal and obtain a clear payment commitment.

4.5.3 Ten suggestions

The following are ten suggestions from foreign experts for call reminders for readers’ reference:

One, be prepared. Before calling, plan carefully, keep customer files at hand, make text reminders, and prepare for records.

Second, stick to your own opinions. When speaking with a customer, don't stray from the target and always lead the customer back to paying off the debt.

Third, be timely. Once you're ready, don't hesitate to call as soon as you can calm down.

Fourth, give customers a sense of urgency. Give customers who owe money the feeling that they should pay today.

Five, be alert. Have the conversational knowledge to communicate ideas with others, be resourceful, but always be polite and courteous, even if the other person is rude.

6. Be polite. Demonstrate personal professionalism, establish your own reputation, and improve the impression of the company in the minds of customers.

Seven, be serious. Be meticulous with questions and be friendly without being flippant.

Eight, the attitude of cooperation with others. If the other party is in non-malicious delinquency, it is necessary to show understanding of the other party, give advice to the customer, and suggest that the customer arrange payment.

9. Repeat. During the call, requests for payment and the amount owed are constantly being made.

Ten, understand. Collection is the end of a credit sales activity, and a good dunning may become the beginning of another sales job.

4.5.4 Nine common situations

Telephone collection personnel should always summarize the tactics used by customers when they intend to default, take precautions in advance, and think of countermeasures. Common situations may be as follows:

1. From the beginning, the collection personnel were not informed of the correct contact method and person in charge of the financial department of the enterprise, and the customer purchasing personnel forced the seller's telephone collection personnel to contact through them.

Second, the secretary and the like are blocking the way to prevent the seller's telephone reminders from talking with the person in charge of the purchasing company or the person in charge of finance.

Third, the manager replied, "Let's talk about the situation after we understand the situation", and then never took the initiative to call back.

Fourth, push the case to another employee who does not often work, saying that this employee is responsible for the matter, but the call reminder personnel cannot contact this employee.

5. The customer brags about how powerful his company is, and there is no problem with payment, but the funds are really tight now.

6. Make irresponsible remarks about the purchased goods, appear a little dissatisfied, or pay after answering the research.

Seventh, the reply said that they did not understand the sales terms when signing the contract, and the requirements of the sales terms did not match the buyer's ideas. They did not follow the contract, but only followed their own ideas and so-called market practices.

8. The reply did not understand the sales terms, so the cash discount was not obtained. Although it has expired, the seller is required to give the cash discount before payment.

The above content is excerpted from "Building an Integrity Unit - ICE8000 Integrity Management" (written by Fang Bangjian, free to use, but please indicate the source)