The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts an above-normal hurricane season. Unfortunately, we've already witnessed the power of Hurricane Ida across the country with much of its impact still to be determined. Just as we've discovered with the COVID-19 pandemic, asking for money during this time seems precarious.
While this question will put off sales reps, collections teams may be cheering in their seats. If a sales representative works hard to land the ideal client but the invoice goes unpaid beyond the due date, who should be responsible for connecting with that client? Is a sale really complete if the invoice isn't paid? Do you have a solid process for who follows up and when it becomes necessary for your organization to move the account to collections?
As global markets reopen, inflation is causing corporations of all sizes to reexamine their rates. Supply chains are being affected by higher costs and increased demand for raw materials and labor. According to economists, the inflated costs aren't expected to abate until well into 2022, cutting into profit margins. CEOs are saying that higher costs will last longer than that. If your business operating costs are going up, have you considered charging more for the products and services you offer?
When starting a SaaS company, entrepreneurs begin with a unique idea to solve customer challenges. Customer Success ensures that the product is used successfully by those customers. This business practice ensures that customer churn is reduced and the customers become advocates for the brand.
As a B2B business that supports other B2B businesses, we understand the value of strong client relationships. Much like other relationships, the value can increase over time, offering financial benefits through referrals and upselling. If handled correctly, these relationships can also be mutually beneficial to both parties.
Commercial debt recovery, also called corporate collections or B2B debt collections, is used specifically to recover delinquent business customer accounts. Not to be confused with consumer debt collections where the delinquent account holder is an individual, commercial debts refer only to businesses. To clear up any confusion, we'll cover what's different and why.
Setting up any sort of retainer or regular payments seems to be a great business model. Subscribers to software-as-a-service are auto-billed or auto-renewed regularly, funding any updates to the product and keeping cash flowing. The challenges arise with missed payments or non-paying customers.
If you're in sales, and we all are, you've heard the expression that it's cheaper to retain a customer than to get a new one. Sales and marketing is expensive and retention is easier because the relationship has already been established. Instead of losing customers, especially SaaS customers that have been working with you for months or years, let's try to understand why they're leaving.
As we move into the new year and look back on 2020, we are able to get a clearer picture of what topics to cover in 2021. The mission of this blog is to inform our readers, whether they're our clients or not. It's important for us to help tech entrepreneurs, startup businesses, small businesses, freelancers, independent consultants, manufacturers and other business-to-business organizations build better relationships with their clients. We believe better relationships mean better cashflow.
The internet allows for businesses to sell the use of software (and hardware) and revenue is collected either yearly or monthly as a subscription service. The as-a-service or subscription business model is sustainable as long as payments are received. Because client retention is very important to this business model, debt collections must be handled with business relationships in mind.
