How You Can Leverage Consistency of Back-to-School Schedules

When your business is striving to collect owed funds, it’s helpful to be strategic and plan the best ways to reach your goal. If you contact accounts during the summer and holidays, you might be screaming into the void without any response or results. In other words, it’s a waste of valuable resources.

Instead, you’ll likely see better results by reaching out at certain times during the year and with a set process that escalates messages and actions. We’re entering a good time to reach out to delinquent accounts with kids returning to school. Here’s how your business can use this season to your advantage.

Following Consistent Schedules

After people have returned from summer vacations and their kids are back in school, their schedules tend to return to a more normal routine—at least until the holiday season hits. This means many of your past due accounts will put their focus back on a fitness routine and will have a more consistent schedule.

This window of time is ideal for reaching them regarding collections. Your employees and business may also follow a more consistent schedule than in the summer, allowing them to put more time and attention into delinquent accounts.

Getting Back on Track

The back-to-school season often brings people back to your business. This is the time to ensure they are caught up on their payments and get them back on track with their finances.

At Aldous & Associates, our collections process focuses on keeping people as clients of your business. You can let them know that you would love to continue to have them as a client and be understanding about whatever kept them from paying on time. Also, tell them how easy it is to reinstate themselves through your frictionless collections process. 

Improving Internal Processes

This could also be a prime time for your business to improve its internal collections processes now that you’re on a steady fall schedule without the interruptions of the summer or holidays. If you don’t already have a set collections process, forming one makes the process easier, more specific, and more consistent. Then, the same process is followed regardless of the customer or staff members involved, and having the right system in place improves the chances of success.

Your business should have a process and procedure and share it with relevant employees and new customers. This way, employees know how to handle the process the same way each time, and customers know what to expect from the start. In addition, you can gain consent in the beginning for carrying out your collections methods should you need to later.

After a customer has failed to pay, we recommend that your business stay in charge of the collections process during the first 90 days. This is the perfect time for you to reach out and connect with the customers based on the relationship you already have. If you haven’t had success during that time, sending the case to a collections company is helpful. 

Follow our recommended best practices for your business to take when a customer fails to pay their dues.