Contact before
One of the keys to success is to get ahead of our rivals, either because there may be someone who claims first or because there is a relationship between time and collection effectiveness: the longer it takes to claim, the less chance there is of completing the management successfully. As they explain from Crédito y Caución, "in the first year of validity of a debt, almost 50% of the amounts is recovered in the first quarter, while in the fourth quarter, less than 10%".
Pere J. Brachfield, one of the leading experts in delinquency in Spain, professor at EAE and vice president of the Spanish Professional Association of Collection Managers, goes further: “Before the crisis there was a critical period to manage a recovery that did not exceed the 120 days has now been reduced to 60 days for a sale and 30 days for a service ”. So as soon as you have proof of the default, act. That same day or at the latest the next day.
The proximity factor. Do not forget another of the axioms in recoveries: the further you are geographically, the later you will get paid. It is not the same to owe someone you can meet on the street than a businessman who is thousands of miles away.
To know the reasons. On many occasions, non-payment is used as a method of pressure to protest against something (bad delivery, bad service), as an instrument of complaint and even as the only way to attract attention. If we do not respond to complaints quickly, we can cause the default to be irrecoverable. However, if it occurs due to a solvency problem, it is also important to know as soon as possible the reasons that have led our client to this situation in order to offer viable solutions.
To avoid prescriptions. It is true that, in general terms, the statute of limitations for a debt in Spain is very long (about 15 years on average), but there are exceptions that should be known. Thus, for example, in Catalonia, the term is reduced to 10 years. In public administration it is four. The three-year checking account promissory notes. And some sectors, such as transport or travelers, the prescription expires after six months! It is true that the prescription can be interrupted, but it must be done formally, a telephone conversation without documented proof is not enough. And if after 15 days or a month you have not received any kind of minimally satisfactory response from your interlocutor, pass it on to your lawyers so they can act accordingly.
Contact better
In this crucial section, several complementary phases come into play. It would be the equivalent of the formal and psychological preparation of any entrepreneur: the first would include the most technical aspects and the second, the attitude.
Document yourself. You need to come up with the debt claim with all the necessary debt and debtor information. Regarding the first, it is necessary to have the documentation that proves the provision of the service or sale, and the conditions under which it was carried out. It would be an order, a delivery note, an invoice. Regarding the conditions of provision of the service or of the sale, it is necessary to know if there have been any complaints or setbacks, before or after, if there is any clause that we are not aware of since any eventuality that we ignore may force us to interrupt the conversation to collect more data.
Regarding the debtor, it is important to know all the history of that client: number of incidents, evolution of orders, possible complaints or previous existing claims, time of relationship, current situation of the company (legal, economic and business information ), possible conflicts with our competition ...
This information should be updated continuously and referred to all customers, because, as Luis Salvatierra, general manager of Intrum Justitia for Spain and Portugal, warns, “companies tend to be very meticulous with new ones, but they forget to update the information on new customers. old, of a lifetime. And that's where the vast majority of defaults occur ”.
Get organized. It is important to convey an image of seriousness and organization before the debtor, because one of the most common mistakes is that each section of the company sends a different message: the salesperson tells the client that he can pay in three installments, the financial director demands a One-time payment, the CEO, who is his friend, reassures him… In the end, disorganization is transmitted and, when it comes to prioritizing their payments, defaulters always leave the weakest, most disorganized and tolerant until last. Prepare a collection protocol and start it as soon as the non-payment occurs.
-Check their credibility. It is important to create an environment in which our interlocutor can explain the reasons for your non-payment with complete peace of mind. In this phase, we must be attentive to all verbal and non-verbal signals, because they can provide us with a lot of information. To verify the credibility of your reasons, one tactic is to ask you for documentation that justifies what you tell us. That is, in the face of excuses such as:
-Well, I haven't received the invoice.
-Don't worry, while we're talking I'll send it to you by email so you can confirm receipt on the fly.
- Right now I am facing a liquidity break, precisely because I have pending payments that have not just been made.
-If you send me the documentation that proves these defaults, perhaps we can reach an agreement to improve the payment method.
The best fiction collectors
Insistence and perseverance are crucial in recovery and the sooner you start "nagging", the sooner the debtor will recognize you. The defaulter often plays with the illusion that the debt will be forgotten by the creditor. It's the old saying "old debt, dead debt." So play on his uneasiness, making it clear that you are well aware of the problem. It's like the comparison Brachfield likes to make: “Of all fictional cops, the best delinquent manager wouldn't be Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood) with his tough police methods, personal harassment, intimidation and violence. The best would be a mix between Lieutenant Colombo (Peter Falk) and Patrick Jane, the character from the series The Mentalist, who mixed the insistence, patience, tenacity, cunning and perseverance of the former with the manipulative capacity of the latter ”.
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Isabel garcia mendez
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