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Then it’s two months and you’re obliged to pick up the phone. “Hey Bill, glad I caught you. Just a little thing...I expect you’ve got it all in hand. Don’t know why I’m bothering you really. Your last invoice..?  No, no, honestly it’s fine, I just thought I’d...you know.  Whenever...great...sorry to have troubled you.”

Sound familiar?

You know what? I noticed something today, when I was making those calls.

As a virtual assistant, not only was I a step removed from the personal involvement many small businesses have with their customers, I was an unknown quantity to the customers as well. When I introduced myself and my business, they knew for sure that I wasn’t an employee of the person to whom they owed money. I simply told them that my client had asked me to follow up on some overdue invoices.

Was I a debt collecting agency? Was I a solicitor? They weren’t too sure and I felt that perhaps I was getting a little more of their attention than if my client had been on the phone themselves. I was, most definitely, a “third party”, that they did know.

That’s not to say I think it’s a good thing to scare your best customers into paying up. That wasn’t my intention at all and I would never ever be anything other than professional and courteous. But let’s face it, not all your late-payers have genuine reasons for being late-payers. Some simply intend to hang on to their money for as long as possible and for these annoying people I reckon it doesn’t do any harm at all for them to imagine that my client has taken their debt-collecting methods up a notch or two.

So next time you get sweaty palms at the thought of picking up the phone to call Bill, consider asking a virtual assistant to do the job for you.

Oh, and you’re probably wondering if it actually works?

I got payments over £450 over the phone in less than 90 minutes. The cost to my client for my time? Twenty pounds.

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Bad Debts - When You’d Rather Not Have Such a Good Relationship With Your Customers

“I hate to ask,” she apologised, “I always feel so guilty when I ask them to pay up...it’s been such a difficult year for everyone... but do you think you could..?

Of course I could – I don’t know my client’s customers the way she does, I don’t have the same empathy and so I didn’t feel remotely nervous or guilty about contacting them.

The main job today was chasing overdue invoices for a client’s recalcitrant customers. It was a straightforward assignment. Very ordinary stuff, in fact.

My client had been trying to pin some of them down for several months and would probably have carried on in the same vein for several more if the telephone line in front of her office hadn’t come crashing down the day before her regular round of calls.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t always be polite, friendly and understanding. But when you get to know your customers well, it does create a certain embarrassment when you need to remind them of their obligations.

You banter with them when they phone to place an order, you see them at the same trade shows and exhibitions...it’s fair to say you develop a pretty good relationship. And you nurture that relationship, because you want them to keep on buying your stuff. That’s the good side of getting to know your customers inside out and small businesses do it very well.

The flip side is when they don’t pay the bills on time. You don’t call at first because, hey, it’s only been just over a month since the bill went out...it’d seem a bit petty to harass such a good customer already.