We’re continuing our video series “A Chat with Matt” where we talk to Matt Peterson, content training specialist at Infusionsoft, to share creative marketing ideas to help you and your business succeed.

Last week Matt Peterson and I talked about getting referrals and engaging with our customers to help them, help us.

This week we wanted to talk about billing and collections. As Small Business owners we all want to get paid but for our customers, it may not be that simple and it can become frustrating for all parties.

“It’s frustrating for a lot of reasons; one you don’t have the money, two you feel like your options are limited as a business owner; if I’m trying to collect from somebody that owes me money I either have to be on the phone constantly taking up a lot of my time or some of my staff’s time, or I hire it out to a collections agency who doesn’t have my voice and can be annoying and then I ruin my brand so, there’s really not a good alternative if you don’t use automation,” says Peterson.

But the good news is that there are options that allow automation to help get the job done in a good customer service manner.

If we set up billing and collections sequences we can message our customers once, in our own words, and ask for their payment. If a few days go by and we still haven’t received it, we can then send an additional reminder email that may be a bit more up-front, and this allows us to follow up. Since this would all be set up in advance, it would work automatically without us having to worry.

“If it gets to a certain point then I do have to get involved, so I’ll get a notification then I can make a phone call or hire someone to take care of it for me,” says Peterson.

One important thing to mention is “the voice” that our messages or requests are going out to. Peterson says research shows that customers are more likely to pay a bill if the request or reminder comes from the business owner or person in charge because it feels more personal.

As far as when to send reminders of past due bills, Peterson says you can start by sending a message as soon as 2 days after the payment date passed, then perhaps a week or two weeks later at the most. It always depends on your business so you can chose what’s best for you.

So keep it personal and remember we never know what our customers are going through so it’s best to stay on top of financial matters such as this one.

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