It’s natural to blame your customers for not paying, but before you accuse them of bad behavior, make sure your own house is in order. Rule number one in algorithmic recovery is to approach debtors from a CRM perspective as opposed to a disciplinary one. With this strategy, it’s far more likely you’ll get customers back on regularly paying terms for the long run. (more…)

It’s easy to sum up our success with Elance-oDesk: for every $1 of debt we recovered, they have seen more than $2 of additional, post-recovery payments from these customers. These are pretty compelling numbers. For perspective, let’s rewind. Elance-oDesk is one of the world’s largest online workplaces. More than 2.5M businesses and more than 8M freelancers converge on www.elance.com and www.odesk.com to work together via the Internet. By the end 2014, the merged companies expect to see more than $900 million in billings. However, before TrueAccord, many of those billings had gone awry. (more…)

If you’re a marketing or customer service manager at a large bank, your success is likely tied to increasing your institution’s Net Promoter Score. You’re probably also familiar with the paradoxical task of collecting debt without sacrificing promoters. The age of big data has a solution for that. With the right collections partner, you can improve customers’ attitudes not just about the late bill at hand, but about their overall experience of the brand itself. How is this possible? For starters, it’s an essential evolution in the financial industry. According to Satmetrix, credit card providers face a particularly onerous challenge in debt collection because it typically takes six or more years before any one customer becomes profitable. In their attempt to maximize customer spending and tenure, lenders must innovate in the realm of debt repayment. If satisfaction is the fundamental NPS driver, it stands to reason the most valuable innovations in customer service will focus on turning critics into advocates. Finding disgruntled customers is easy. Many of them are refusing to pay their bills. At TrueAccord, we’ve found that winning back these types of customers can create some of your strongest advocates. Recover relationships, not just sums. TrueAccord’s proactive loss management system uses enterprise-grade analytics to personalize our approach to individuals – to connect with them as humans – in a way that not only gets you paid but wins you fans. We accomplish this by looking at root causes of delinquency rather than the past-due balance itself. We segment customers based on how they perform both before and after we point out their tardiness. And we know how and when to follow up. Take it from one of our best testimonials: “This has to be the funniest bill collection I have ever received and it actually made me want to pay.” The creditor in question could have written off this customer. Instead, we created a promoter. We’ve also found that in addition to driving an organization’s NPS, TrueAccord’s debt collection methods can increase a company’s overall revenue. Our customers see more than $2 in additional business for every $1 paid per late payer we retained for them. Bring it home. A seminal Bain survey of more than 89,000 customers of various types of US banks found that promoters stay longer with their institutions, buy more products, refer more new customers and cost less to serve. The study also found that among affluent US customers, a promoter is worth $9,500 more than a detractor over the tenure of that customer relationship. Of particular note, direct banks enjoy drastically higher NPS than national branch networks based on recommendations from friends, colleagues and family members. At TrueAccord, we can make your customers feel like they’re dealing with their local banker down the street. And as history suggests, communities promote from within.  

Ever wondered why people make the choices they make, and how you can help them make other choices? Ever wondered whether talking or writing differently can help you get paid more, and more often? If so, you should attend our webinar about behavioral economics in debt collection. We'll go over customer psychology, influence mechanisms and how to tap into them. Click here to sign up!

Your accounts receivable team stands between you and your cash. That’s too much power to be taken lightly. To successfully carry out their duties, AR professionals require immense insight and finesse. They’re not just enforcers; they’re part of your CRM team. And if they’re not properly informed, they can cause lapses in compliance that can imperil your business far more than a few late payments – especially if you’re an SMB. Here are the top three qualities to look for in an effective AR professional: They are respectful toward customers. First off, it’s critical you hire someone who will approach your customers with respect. In fact, an unskilled AR person was our catalyst in founding TrueAccord. Rude bill collectors might get one bill paid, but you’ve probably lost that customer for good. There is a demonstrated economic upside to retaining even the customers who don’t pay on time. It’s also worth pointing out that cash is not the only form of currency you can receive. AR people are also in a position to uncover strong customer insights that can enhance the brand experience for everyone. Sometimes it’s not the talking, but the listening, that drives your bottom line. They know the applicable laws. Compliance with debt collection laws requires ongoing legal counsel. Without access to and supervision from lawyers, your AR person not only can derail individual payments, they can expose your company to debilitating fines. There are also missteps in etiquette that can have an equally devastating effect on the status of payment, such as contacting customers at the wrong time of day or via the wrong medium. For example, Thursdays and Fridays are the best days to capture and hold attention and email has a surprisingly lower open and response rate than direct mail. They are entrepreneurial in spirit. The ideal AR professional should be able to think holistically about your business. They should understand your overall goals and be familiar with fundamental business principles, such as the relative ease in retaining versus winning a customer. Most importantly, they think of themselves as brand ambassadors from the moment they send the first invoice until receipt of final payment. Check out our short e-book on the topic. All of that said, there are some situations too big for a single AR person or even an AR team to handle. Scouring the web for AR best practices is not always enough for SMBs to effectively leverage what is often one of their largest liquid assets. TrueAccord specializes in advanced methods of collecting debt and can step in at any time with proven methods to dissolve an impasse.

Debt Collection is a highly regulated industry, where debtors and collectors follow the letter of the law. It is in fact a highly litigious one, drawing attention to dry technical terms rather than the intent of a certain rule or another. Compliance with debt collection laws is therefore paramount to any debt collector, and an issue that creditors deeply care about (because they can get in trouble, too!). At TrueAccord, we analyze laws, follow litigation cases, enforcement actions and bills to make sure we, and our customers, are compliant. Our legal team works diligently to make sure that we know what's the latest in rule making, and stay compliant and ahead of the curve. Of course, this also works well with our values and why we started the company. What Are The Major Debt Collection Laws? This is a non-exhaustive list of the type of rules that govern our actions in debt collection. There are many others, including licensing requirements, that we are required to meet. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act governs debt collection practices at the Federal level (there are others for the state level). The FDCPA defines prohibited and allowed practices in debt collection. It tells us when, how and how often we are allowed to contact consumer debtors, what disclosures need to be made in that communication, and what cannot be done (although we are much more strict than the law). The Telephone Consumer Protection Act defines legal practices for making business phone calls. It defines the tools to be used and avoided, how to disclose the purpose of a call, what's considered consent to being contacted and more. The Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates the collection and use of consumer credit information. It governs when and how we can report debtors to credit bureaus and impact their credit score. It also allows dispute of reports under certain circumstances, and how data needs to be handled. This is just a glimpse into the complex world of debt collection laws and regulation. Our job is to make sure we stay compliant while getting customers to talk to us and settle their debt. You don't need to worry about compliance  - our experts navigate this topic for you, so you can focus on growing your business.  

What's Debt Collection? How does it work? What is the State of Debt Collection in 2014? Debt Collection is a hotly debated industry in 2014. With more enforcement action and more consumers getting into debt, many hold to firm opinions about the pros and cons of the trade. To help the discussion with some facts, we're proud to present TrueAccord's 2014 State of Debt Collection infographic. Here's you'll find answers to common questions and misconceptions like: Debt collectors only buy debt for cents on the dollar and collect as much of it as possible (wrong!) Debt collection is loosely regulated (absolutely wrong!) There is a lot of money in debt collection (true indeed) And more.

Is getting paid art or science? The proponents of the "Art" argument will say that getting paid needs the personal touch - one needs to know who to talk to, when, what to say and how to push. While we don't discount the personal touch (and will use it in specifically chosen cases), we view getting paid as clearly a numbers problem, one that lends itself well to optimization and analysis. What can you learn from our experience so you can write and send better demands for payment? When To Send Demands for Payment Optimizing sending day and time is crucial, since you want to place the demand for payment so it gets the most attention. Before that, though, comes the simplest optimization of all: send an invoice immediately after work is done. Every day you wait delays your payment, even if the customer pays immediately upon receipt. There's no need to wait. What are ideal times for sending a demand for payment? Our data shows that Thursday afternoon and Friday are the strongest days. It makes sense, intuitively - your customer has more time to respond since the post-weekend craziness has subsided. On Friday, they might be calm and thinking about the weekend. Either way, the data clearly shows these days and times to be ideal. Better Demands for Payment: Email or Letter? Unfortunately, it depends. Using emails vs. letters is clear when the cost is prohibitive (letters are much more expensive), if you're dealing with customers who are less technical (and are less likely to answer or read emails) or when timing and promptness are extremely important (letters are unpredictable). Beyond that, here are a few pros and cons to consider: Direct mail has much higher open and response rates than email. Even sophisticated users have grown so accustomed to email, that they tend to open it much less. Emails allow direct response. It's harder, though far from impossible, to allow quick online payments through a letter (TrueAccord customers have this option enabled in their Debtor Dashboard, so they can easily pay online even after getting a letter). Emails allow much more testing and iteration. If you have a large number of debts, the aptitude and time, you can improve your email response rate much more than you would letters. At the end of the day, both methods are helpful when used in conjunction, and sometimes followed up with a call or a text message. Combining communication channels is an issue we spend a lot of time thinking about. What Should the Demands for Payment Say? If you're wondering about the content, we have two pieces of advice for you. First, read our short guide about 3 Invoice Design Tips. This will get you started. Then, wait for and download our upcoming eBook - Collection Letters That Work. It will provide a great starting point for everything direct mail. Bottom Line Getting paid on time is a science, although there aren't many available sources that tell you where to start. Future posts will share more of our insights about writing, designing and delivering great demands for payment. What's your advice on getting paid on time? Share with us in the comments!  

After many attempts to resolve matters in a friendly manner, you may reach the end of the line in trying to get a customer to pay what they owe you. You tried demands for payment, tried calling, maybe even using a debt collector. Should you sue? Is suing late customers worth it? Going to court definitely an option. Before you do, consider the following: Do you have proper documentation? If you provided a service or goods without a contract, made concessions without documentation, never properly demanded payment and cannot prove your claims, you're in trouble. Watch this video. Realize you should have done things differently to begin with. You probably do not have a case. Did you exhaust all other options? Some people juggle many bills or are just too irresponsible to pay. One thing in common all people who share this behavior have is the tendency to only handle urgent matters. Have you made a credible threat? Sometimes, a mere demand letter from your lawyer, rather than you, explaining the situation before going to court, is going to get you paid. Which court will you go to? Are you within the boundaries of a small claims court, or should you aim for a Civil Trial? Do you have a lawyer, and are you up for the process if you need to get legal representation? What happens if your customer counter sues? If you have good answers to the questions above, suing your (now ex-)customer is a viable option. Sometimes, it is the only option left. Before you do, make sure that you are prepared, and know what to expect.  

Why write collection letters at all? We believe that collection should be an integral part of your business practices. While we explain why you need a professional collection partner to help you, we also advocate talking to your customers as well as doing what you can to recover money that's owed to you before sending late customer to collection. After all, increasing retention by 5% increases profits by 25-95%. How do you approach recovering money efficiently? Writing better collection letters is part of the equation. Writing Better Collection Letters - What's in the eBook? In this eBook you'll get a review of why and when to use letters instead of emails or calls, and a few free letter samples that you can edit and use. Further more, we'll highlight a few key terms and phrases our behavioral economics use when writing our collection copy. If You Plan To Write Collection Letters On Your Own - This eBook Is For You. Good luck! Tell us how it works for you, and try us out if you need more help.