Yet through obstacles like these, you gain valuable learnings and insights into consumer behaviour, your market, and business in general.
One area where you may run into hurdles is during debt recovery.
Healthy cash flow is instrumental to running a successful business, with the power to turn a struggling operation into a happy one.
In this blog, we explore some of the biggest obstacles that businesses run into during debt recovery.
Small businesses are known for moving quickly to try and hit the ground running. Often this comes at the expense of critical details, such as setting up a clear and streamlined way of doing things that everyone in the organisation can follow.
Taking the time to create internal processes and communicate these clearly with your team will ensure everyone is singing from the same song sheet.
It is also important to build and clearly communicate your external policies with customers, such as payment terms and cancellation policies so that there are no gaps in the system and everyone is clear and happy with the arrangement.
What can you do about it?
Another common small business debt recovery problem is not having the time to follow up debts, despite the best intentions.
It can be easy to procrastinate because you are either too busy or would honestly rather be doing something other than chasing your customers for debt collection. The days and hours after a debt falls overdue are critical.
We should also remember that trying to do everything yourself is often not the most productive use of your time. If you are not adequately resourced for prompt debt collection, now is the time to sort it out.
What can you do about it?
It can be uncomfortable having tricky conversations, especially if it’s not part of your everyday practise. There is also the added worry of potentially damaging relationships and losing rapport with your customers, which many find a challenge of debt collection.
It is also common within small business to lack experience in conflict management or not be fluent in the type of language to use. Many of our small debt collection clients describe the feeling of having ‘put their foot in it’ when it comes to their debt recovery conversations and have felt relieved once they have handed over the problem to EC Credit Control’s team to navigate.
What can you do about it?
The reality is that your customers and their businesses may be declared insolvent without much warning. While customer bankruptcy is not an everyday occurrence, it is especially relevant to consider in the context of today’s COVID-19 pandemic and economic environment and can be particularly painful if you have customers with large balances owing.
Whatever the reasons small business fail, if this has happened you will want to ensure your chance of debt recovery is as strong as possible.
What can you do about it?
If your business sells to a large number of customers and offers them credit terms, often the sheer scale of your customer base can be the biggest debt collection challenge your small business faces.
With more people to follow up, it can become really hard work to reconcile your payments and keep track of all the outstanding debts. In our experience, this often results in customers and invoices slipping between the cracks, either by forgetting to firstly invoice them or failing to realise they have fallen behind and following up.
Whether you run an accountancy practice or a lawnmowing business, you are going to want to effectively manage each customer on your books with care.
What can you do about it?
These are just a couple of things you can implement within your business.
If you are noticing changes in a customer’s payment behaviour, we can help. Let’s chat through your options in more detail.
Fill in your details and your Business Support Specialist will be in touch within the day to arrange a suitable time to catch up.
EXCELLENT Based on 158 reviews Mancuso Constructions Info13 March 2025Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. Peter and the team at EC Credit Control made setting up our Terms of Trade seamless and ensured we’re protected. Great service and support—highly recommend! Blue Xplus21 February 2025Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. reliable and professional in their job. Help Me iT&D19 February 2025Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. Excellent company to deal with. Straight forward with their fee structure and they get the job done 👍 My friend recommended EC to me and it was a great outcome, will use them again. Darren Hall21 January 2025Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. We have been with E.C. Credit Control for over 18 years. We have always found them very professional, friendly and helpful in all our dealings with the whole team. I would Highly Recommend them to anyone requiring debt recovery. The whole process is very simply with them doing all the hard work with the new Terms & Conditions, Template Letters & forms They work very hard to get a great result. They keep you in the loop of what is happening and always easy to talk to. 5 Stars all the way ***** Chloe Luhrs19 December 2024Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. We’ve been working with EC Credit Control for years, and they have always been a massive help with chasing outstanding payments and sorting out any issues quickly. We recently had them update our terms of trade, and they were fantastic; prompt, detailed, and really made the process simple. Couldn’t recommend them more for credit management and support. Wayne Moore10 December 2024Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. I've used EC Credit Controls services for nearly 10 years now. The Terms of Trade supplied by them have saved me tens of thousands of dollars and stress over those years, I rarely have issues getting paid anymore! Probably one of the best services I have ever introduced into my business hands down! Highly recommend their services if you have trouble with those clients that have no intentions of paying, it weeds them out very quickly! John Boumelhem6 December 2024Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. Monika was extremely helpful and explained a lot of things clearly and professionally. I can definitely say that I have learnt a lot from her and what Monika and EC have offered my business has been great. Martin Mace5 December 2024Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. EC Credit Control, and in particular, Tanya Pascoe, have provided us with excellent customer service. Tanya was top level with our on-boarding and after-sales service, and continues to go out of her way to help with any of our queries. Jason Burnett28 November 2024Trustindex verifies that the original source of the review is Google. Highly recommend! We have been dealing with Tanya Pascoe With terms of trade, subcontractor agreements and monies owed. She is very prompt and easy to deal with. We have been using EC Credit control for over 10 years and they have never let us down. Thank you.Verified by TrustindexTrustindex verified badge is the Universal Symbol of Trust. Only the greatest companies can get the verified badge who has a review score above 4.5, based on customer reviews over the past 12 months. Read more
(please include your contact details)
Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide & Tasmania
EC Credit Control (Aust) Pty Ltd