I never worry about delinquent accounts switching to another service. If they want to they can go with Qwest. An account that doesn't pay is just a waste of service and I can put the equipment to use somewhere else. Besides Qwest will shut them off just as quickly as I will and they are not as flexible in terms of payment. Heck, I've taken service in kind from another business if that was the only way they could pay the bill.
Sam Tetherow Sandhills Wireless Tom DeReggi wrote:
All sounds good but...So what happens when the customer, sends the check for the monthly fee, but refuses to send the check for the "reconnect or late fee"? To charge someone a monthly fee, you are obligated to deliver services. If you purposely disconnect services, the customer is not obligated to pay for the survices during the time it is disconnected, and you are indirectly authorizing the decission to choose not to get paid for that time. Sure if its residiential, and you say, "I wont turn you on, until you pay", you can make sure payment is received before turning on. But most businesses would never condone, service being left off, while waiting for payment to arrive. Cutting someone's service off, is a great way to make sure the customer places an order with a competitor.The customer doesn't tell you that, but the order gets placed.It may work for residential underserved areas, but I challenge whether that tactic works for served areas or businesses.The only way a business puts up with it, is if they really are in financial distress, with the mentality that it would be a greater financial hardship to buy a new service and pay associated isntall charges. But we have found that most businesses, when they are behind on payment, its rarely because of financial hardship. Its usually just a temporary cash flow issue, or what ever justification they may have.I guess my point is... if you have a client that is guaranteed to pay, based on their history, is it worth taking the risk, just to get payment a little bit earlier?For us whats more important is to make sure a client does not get to far behind. If they get far behind, its to hard to collect, as their is a cost incintive for them to walk, stiffing us on a larger sum of unpaid bills.What has helped us the most is realizing reality that people don't pay on time, and allocating a certain amount of time each month for collections. Its a necessary cost of doing business. If someone is late, we get on the phone and call them, and ask for payment. We are considering a cut off policy... But ONLY after a call has first been made to attempt collection of payment. So it gives us the option to work with the client, if they have a legitimate hardship.The other thing, is that you ahve to be prepared to give someone a method to pay you, promptly. Nothing worse that cutting a customer off, and then not being around to get their call, to reactivate. There is a cost to that as well.That is one of the reasons that I like, Captive Portal type methods of payment. When someone is cut off, they have a way to re-activate immediately. I jsut think that shutting someone off that is less than 30 days, is not advantageous all things considered.Tom DeReggi RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband ----- Original Message ----- From: "Larry Strittmatter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'WISPA General List'" <wireless@wispa.org> Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 8:01 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] Non-paying SubsAnother incentive is to add on a re-connect charge. There is a costinvolved in locking and unlocking a customers account. We have collected afee for this process for some time and it makes the process much more palatible for us. The customer is accustomed to paying a "late","overdraft", etc fee elsewhere if this is habitual. If it is a first time and the customer asks we will waive the fee, informing them that it is a onetime option, and look like the good guy for doing so. If they are hit a second time they have been warned in advance. Larry -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eje Gustafsson Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2007 9:44 PM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: RE: [WISPA] Non-paying SubsIn the glory days of dialup we had customers that this was the ONLY way for us to get them to come in and pay. Pretty funny the few times we did haveproblems we always had a good turn up on customers that was paying theirbills (same crowed that normally would only come in and pay once they got shutoff) many time no matter if it just been a week or two since they paid.They just gotten so much into the habit not to pay on time so when theycouldn't access the internet they knew it was time to pay. We shut them offday after their due date. Occasionally we had a person that complainedloudly because they had gotten shutoff especially if they normally paid ontime. But we generally played along that we where sorry but it's anautomated system and if we do not have their payment on the next business day after due date the system automatically shut unpaid accounts. Usuallyput the fight out of them. / Eje -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Nash Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 12:55 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Non-paying Subs Hey everyone.I've recently cleaned up alot of billing/past due issues. My main commenthere is that it's amazing how responsive people are when you turn theirconnection off due to nonpayment. They are generally not upset because theyknow they haven't been paying. Don't be afraid to get in the habit of checking your billing and turning people off for nonpayment. It's expected. 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