up the e-campaigns and clicking on the
specific links over a period of time, we can
begin to form an idea of the recipient’s
interests and needs.
So now you are asking yourself, what has
this got to do with the credit department
and its credit goals? Let me offer two ways
why this is useful in supporting the goal
of expanding sales safely, as well as using
this tool to refine your collection activities.
Potential customer readership data can be
augmented by credit information
If for example a recipient of several
marketing e-campaigns has open and click
rates of 90%, at first glance this would
seem to be a very attractive prospect for
sales to pursue.
However, if it turns out that after spending
a lot of time and effort to pursue a given
company it has a poor credit rating,
all that time will have been wasted. In
other words, if those priority recipients
with very high open and click rates were
credit rated prior to being pursued, the
sales department could spend their time
As many e-campaign
platforms have ways
to segment data, you
could always include
polls or notifications
with e-invoices to
segments of your
customer base that
might address dis-
counts, invoice tim-
ing, communication
procedures, and any
other issues that
would help you to
improve your billing
and collection cycles.
Seeing the click rates
on the hyperlinks to
these issues would
help you to gauge
their interest.
80 MAL31/19 ISSUE
Just like the marketing department is
using e-campaigns to obtain interest
level data on their prospects, the cred-
it department could use the same kind
of e-campaign platform to measure and
forecast certain payment activity and
data.
on those leads that from the get go are
only creditworthy. This kind of proactive
function would clearly support the credit
goal of expanding sales safely.
Using e-campaigns to facilitate better
billing procedures and support collection
efforts
Just like the marketing department is using
e-campaigns to obtain interest level data
on their prospects, the credit department
could use the same kind of e-campaign
platform to measure and forecast certain
payment activity and data.
For instance, many companies send out
invoices by email as a PDF attachment. In
doing so, whether that invoice arrives to
the recipient or not is always a question.
And even if it arrives, a customer who
is having some financial difficulties
could always claim, “I never received it.”
However, rather than sending the invoice
as part of an email, by sending it through
an e-campaign platform, as an e-invoice,
you would be able to measure which
customers are opening the e-invoice on a
particular date and time, and clicking on
any embedded hyperlinks, especially those
that link to online payment portals.
Let’s say that out of 500 customers who
are billed at the beginning of the month,
450 customers (90%) have opened the
e-invoice within one day, and of those
recipients, 270 customers (60%) have
clicked on an embedded payment date
confirmation link. Just with this data
alone, you would know very quickly how
much is going to be paid by what date,
which is a tremendous boost to forecasting
your cash flow.
Conversely, by understanding those
customers that have not opened up the
e-invoice, you could either resend it and/
or call before you send it to give a heads
up that the e-invoice will be forthcoming
shortly. This is another wonderful way
to keep close tabs on the arrival and
processing of your invoices.
But it doesn’t have to stop at the above.
When payments are not forthcoming,
measuring the open and click rates
resulting
from
e-statements
and
e-collection correspondence may be a
determining factor as to which customers
need to be placed with third party
collection support.
As many e-campaign platforms have ways
to segment data, you could always include
polls or notifications with e-invoices
to segments of your customer base that
might address discounts, invoice timing,
communication procedures, and any other
issues that would help you to improve
your billing and collection cycles. Seeing
the click rates on the hyperlinks to these
issues would help you to gauge their
interest.
Even if the customer doesn’t respond to
you directly, there’s no reason why you
can’t reach out to them regarding their
interest, understanding in advance what
hyperlinks have been clicked.
With the above in mind, I hope that
you can see that every piece of data we
can receive and analyze from customers,
potential and current, through tools that
might already be in use at your company,
is how we credit professionals can
continue to refine the credit operation and
maximize our credit goals.
Wasilwa Miriongi is a Certified
Credit
Professional
currently
working as the Managing Director,
Del Creder Credit Management
Limited. You can engage him on
this or related matters via email at:
[email protected].