CREDIT MANAGEMENT
When Marketing
Tools Can Help The
Credit Department
By Wasilwa Miriongi
A
s credit professionals one major
debate we have always had as per
the credit department’s reporting
lines is, should the credit manager
report to the Finance Director or to the
Marketing Director. Of course each has
its own pros and cons which is not the
topic now, but provides an insight into the
inter-relationship that exist between the
two important organizational functions.
When for instance we invoice a customer
and follow up to ensure the revenue is
received, is it not just completing a sale
that was commenced by a marketing
person?
from different points of view where
for example marketing and sales view
credit department as business prevention
department interfering in the special
relationships that exist between the
customer and the sales team.
Credit managers are always on the lookout
for ideas that will improve their credit
goals. Surprisingly, those ideas may come
from unlikely places. Marketing on one hand may lack the
understanding of what credit requires
from their office like: information about
new offerings, existing products and
service and about the market being
targeted; information on prospective
customers; speedy responses to all queries
such as returned goods; early warnings
of any customer problems; consultations
about new sales drives and expectations
that may require review of credit limits;
and agreement with sales not to exceed
authorized limits among others.
Those who have worked in a credit
department for a long time, must
have come across conflict between
the two departments. This emanates On the other hand, credit may lack the
understanding that marketing requires
from them such as: prompt decisions and
reasons on credit terms and limits; prompt
Some conflict between marketing and
credit teams emanates from different
points of view where for example mar-
keting and sales view credit department
as business prevention department in-
terfering in the special relationships
that exist between the customer and the
sales team.
78 MAL31/19 ISSUE
notification of problems or queries so as to
get in touch with the customer; payments
to be collected without the loss of a
customer’s goodwill; advice and guidance
on payment terms; user-friendly systems;
and early warnings on problems that could
result in one of their customers being put
on hold.
Since in most cases we are only thinking
of the areas of conflict, it is not very often
that we think of the intersection between
marketing and credit. In fact, we usually
see the marketing department supporting
sales and advertising. But one idea that
credit can take away from marketing is
the gathering, compiling, and analyzing of
data on potential and current customers.
One of the tools that many marketing
departments use in their quest to
understand their present and future
customers, is to send out e-campaigns with
information of value. These e-campaigns
can run the gamut from newsletters to
advertorials to polls to straight promotions,
all in an effort to understand the interest
level of the recipients.
In almost all e-campaigns, there are two
types of very useful data that can be
obtained via the campaign software: the
open rate - which tells you who is opening
up the e-campaign and on what date (and
even at what time); and the click rate -
which tells you who is clicking on the
specific hyperlinks within the body of the
content.
Why is this data important? It is because
when we know who is consistently opening