During this recession it is important for businesses to collect from their customers. Many businesses are afraid to force customers to pay for fear that their customers will move their business to someone else. Management teams that are driven by sales volume go to great extremes to avoid putting collection pressure on customers. Consider the following example from the State of California fiasco:
From http://market-ticker.denninger.net/
If you're a vendor to California you had better figure this one out
and fast. My view would be exactly as it as when I ran MCSNet in
Chicago and the city thought it would play "I'll pay you later" with
our invoices for internet service to the library system. After several
warnings I simply walked up to the terminal and typed:
$ disable account_tag = Chicago_Library
When the terminals in the libraries went dark there was an immediate
reaction - and threats - from the City. Too bad, said I, I don't get
"forbearance" on my parking tickets! Pay up or no service. Period.
An hour later - literally - a city employee walked into our offices with a check for the full balance, and that problem never happened again.
This story is played out time and time again. The lesson here is simple. If a customer receives value - make them pay what they agreed to. If they do not pay, cut them off - period. As to the sales driven team, there is an easy way to avoid this issue. Sales are deemed complete only when the customer has paid. There will always be exceptions, however, in these times, customers that do not pay are not customers, they are leeches!
Copyright 2009 - Jim Lindell