In Focus Commercial Credit


‘Playing the right strings’


The quality of customer relationships will always be a major influence on payment behaviour


Marcel Wiedenbrugge Author, Happy Customers Faster Cash marcel.wiedenbrugge @wcmconsult.com


Customers can sometimes behave erratically. One of the challenges in credit management is to take account of these fluctuations and to adapt communication to them effectively and in a customer-focused manner. Positively influencing payment behaviour


is easy to say, but in practice it requires a lot of skills from the credit manager and credit controller. Professionalism, experience, consistency,


flexibility, communication, and negotiating skills are key elements. The relationship with the customer and


customer satisfaction play an important role in payment behaviour. However, you can only get satisfied customers if you provide them with what really matters to them. This may vary from one customer to


another, and that is why it is so important to spend enough time getting to know them. Poor payment behaviour is not going to


change overnight, but is, above all, a matter of consistently being able to ‘play the right strings’. Not only do you need to get to know, and respect, the customer, but the customer also needs to get to know and respect you.


A bad day Most people show, let us say, 98% predictable behaviour. But sometimes there are days when life is disappointing. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. As soon as you, as a credit controller, call


your already stressed customer, who is having such a day, to talk about overdue invoices, it can be the proverbial drop that makes the bucket run over. Financial aspects can be very sensitive at such a time within the relationship. At such


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moments it is sometimes better to give more priority to the relationship and put less emphasis on payment. Of course, that requires a good understanding of the situation. In a business relationship, quality and loyalty are often determined at difficult times for the customer.


been similar issues before? What is their payment behaviour like? Is the person in question known to be reliable?


Real trust To make a long story short: I then decided to have the repair carried out under ‘coulance’, free of charge. However, I did have a request for the


I asked the customer if he would like to send a short e-mail, in which he briefly indicated what had happened and, crucially, if he would like to conclude the message with the words ‘according to conscience and honour’


During my career, I have made countless


telephone calls with customers, but I will never forget that a customer called me with the announcement that he had taken a new keyboard out of the packaging and the entire bottom of the case was cracked. In other words, everything indicated a


hidden transport damage. When I looked into the ERP system to


check the last delivery of that model, it turned out that, at that time, it was more than two months ago. This meant that a warranty claim based


on hidden transport damage would no longer be possible. At such a moment, you are faced with the choice. Who is the customer? Have there


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customer. I asked the customer if he would like to send a short e-mail, in which he briefly indicated what had happened and, crucially, if he would like to conclude the message with the words ‘according to conscience and honour’. I consciously asked for the latter, because


I wanted to cover myself a little bit that the customer had really told the truth. The next day, I was called by the same


customer. He had slept badly that night, because he could not get it over his heart to send me an e-mail that was incorrect and included the words ‘according to conscience and honour’. It turned out that he had just dropped the


keyboard from his hands. We had a good discussion about it and thereby resolved the issue amicably. The customer felt tremendously relieved


after this conversation and, at the same time, I had a good feeling about it too. The lesson that I learned from this, is


that such an event says something about the quality of the relationship, because a customer with a low moral standard would never have said anything about it. In any case, this experience has always


stayed with me, and it also indicates just how important it is to be honest within a relationship. CCR


November 2017


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