In Focus Commercial Credit
The journey to getting paid on time
Last month, CCRMagazine and Marston brought together a group of senior professionals to consider their key areas of concern in terms of getting paid. They were: Atul Vadher, chair, East of England CICM; Andrew Burman, credit manager, AB Enterprises (AB); Ian Strangward, customer finance manager, Karndean Designflooring (IS); Louise Woffenden, group credit manager, Metropolis International Group (LW); Jason Reeve, collections manager, Opus Energy; Alison Bennett, collections manager, Opus Energy; Matthew Mitchell, head of credit, Avara Foods (MM); Martin Parr (MP); Ray Welsby, a manager with the recoveries team, Shoosmiths (RW); David Lynch, client services director – civil and business, Marston (Holdings); Gary Pond, interim credit manager, Fullers Brewery; Sally Nolan, business development director – civil and business, Marston (Holdings); Paul Gordon, company credit controller, Securitas (PG); Matthew Nelson, founder, RISC Vision; Sara Souyave, head of debt recovery services, Shulmans; Alan Brown, former credit manager (ABR); Paul Lewis, sales and development manager, Bucci Freight Services; Nirmal Noteha, credit manager, McGraw-Hill International (UK); Clive Jacobs, head of global credit risk, AstraZeneca; Jackie Moody, credit control manager, Cengage Learning Services; Robert Thompson, partner
What role does contact technology have to play in today’s industry? MP: Technology is great in its own place. The technology is there that can improve your efficiency and your productivity, but it still cannot replace the human. It can certainly improve productivity by the use, for example, of scorecards, which will highlight the people who you should be contacting with more urgency. But, customers can hide behind technology
too: it is very easy to be tough on an e-mail. And I have even seen it on an e-mail where somewhat has accidentally left the caps lock on; the e-mail was just sent internally and people took that as shouting at them. So you still have to be very careful about how you use the tools that are available to you, and the trouble is, with e-mail, that you can reply in haste. Going back to the ‘good old days’ when you had to write a letter, then it
Credit control has to be much more at the forefront. I do not think that credit control works in finance, personally, I think that it is a commercial role rather than a financial role
meant you had to think, but with an e-mail it can just be type-and-go. So technology is certainly very good in some ways to increase productivity and efficiency, but I still say that nothing will replace the human touch.
RT:When considering technological communications, speaking with clients it is
clear that it tends to be the aggregation of marginal gains. You need to be offering digital technology and you will obtain marginal gains from everything that you add, whether it is two-way SMS, web-chat, whatever it might be. But, fundamentally, the big money still tends to come in over the telephone, so it usually has to remain as part of your strategy.
AB: The telephone is the most under-rated tool at the credit manager’s disposal; it is criminally under-rated.
MP: One of the first things you should be asking customers is: what is your preferred method of communication?
PG: Credit control has to be much more at the forefront. I do not think that credit control works in finance,
>>
Left-right: Ian Strangward; Matthew Mitchell; Matthew Nelson; Ray Welsby March 2020
www.CCRMagazine.com 15
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52