No matter whether you’re running a veterinary practice or a dentistry practice, reaching out to your clients to collect late payments is never a fun experience. But, it does not have to be one that changes your relationship permanently. In today’s post, Veterinary Mastery shares a bit of insight on how to navigate the rocky road of missed and late payments without turning your clients in the other direction.
Customer Service Matters
Just about every aspect of your practice revolves around the service you provide your customers and how well you know them. When it comes time to collect late payments, your customer service team or admin staff will either provide a positive or negative experience. When done right, your customers will pay and continue to make you their veterinarian of choice. Executed poorly, and you may be stuck with an open invoice while the competition gains a new account.
Make sure that your customer service team is fully prepared to handle both positive and negative interactions. This starts with ensuring they have the right tools. One to consider here is client communication technology. Not only does your software help your team manage the reminders and letting you know when a client is overdue for services, it also provides additional ways to connect with your client. Your software system can show your staff when the client was last contacted and, in many cases, will provide personal information that can make a conversation go much more smoothly and a lot of the software reports back into your practice management system. There are many options out there including, AllyDVM, Rapport, Weave, PetDesk, and many more.
Your staff should also be clear and concise, use positive language and, perhaps most importantly, be unified. When your team all knows what’s going on and can provide your customers with consistent information, there will never be a question about how late payments are handled. A lot of the clients we work with come up with a script that’s unique to their team for ways to communicate clearly in difficult conversations.
Get Paid Before The Due Date
Unfortunately, no matter how great your customer service, collecting late invoices costs you money. But, you can circumvent many instances of non payment by strategically designing how you invoice and get paid. Incentivizing, which often means providing a small discount for full payment upfront, is a great option. However, if you are already on a tight margin, this will only cut deeper into your profits. Setting up a clear payment policy, asking for deposits up front, having multiple options for payment like CareCredit and also having in house wellness plans.
While you can’t always get everyone to pay on time, the last thing you want is to lose a client. To keep your relationships intact, start by empowering your customer service. At the close of each business day, your goal is to have the same number of (or more) clients than you had yesterday. The way you handle late payments will greatly influence whether or not you achieve this goal.
