We hope you will overlook the delay and give as another opportunity to serve you.
Very truly yours,
Wells & Sons.
Credit and Collection Letters
Business is done largely on credit, but comparatively few men in business seem to understand that in the letters concerning accounts lies a large opportunity for business building. The old-style credit man thinks that it is all important to avoid credit losses; he opens an account suspiciously and he chases delinquent accounts in the fashion that a dog goes after a cat.
Business is not an affair of simply not losing money: it is an affair of making money. Many a credit grantor with a perfect record with respect to losses may be a business killer; he may think that his sole function is to prevent losses. His real function is to promote business. The best credit men in the country are rarely those with the smallest percentage of losses, although it does happen that the man who regards every customer as an asset to be conserved in the end has very few losses.
Therefore, in credit granting, in credit refusing, and in collection, the form letter is not to be used without considerable discrimination. It is inadvisable to strike a personal note, and many firms have found it advantageous to get quite away from the letter in the first reminders of overdue accounts. They use printed cards so that the recipient will know that the request is formal and routine.
Another point to avoid is disingenuousness, such as "accounts are opened for the convenience of customers." That is an untrue statement. They are opened as a part of a method of doing business and that fact ought clearly to be recognized. It does not help for good feeling to take the "favoring" attitude. Every customer is an asset; every prospective customer is a potential asset. They form part of the good-will of the concern.
Tactless credit handling is the most effective way known to dissipate good-will.
To open a charge account