Outsourcing has become increasingly popular as more and more companies build themselves around other businesses offloading work onto them. Dunning letter outsourcing is not unique in this regard. There are plenty of companies that offer services or products to help offload some of the burden this can cause. Managing a database, preparing letter templates, sending emails or letters, and tracking results are difficult and if a specialized company can help with 1 or 2 of these tasks then that’s great. But, is fully offloading your dunning letter production and process for you? We will find out.
Effective Dunning Process
There are a few ways you can help make your dunning letters more effective. The most common way this is done is by analyzing your existing process, messaging, and follow-up. These are the areas focused on because it is what the recipient sees and hands their hands on.
But, these are not the processes that we will be focusing on today. There are always improvements, tweaks, and additional personalization you can add to dunning letters to make them more effective. But all of these improvements mean nothing if you are sending your letters to the wrong people, or if you are solely relying on one method of communication.
The most effective dunning process is a multistep process that includes dunning letters, phone, and email. As with anyone, it is easy to receive a letter and then let life get in the way and it slips through the cracks. This is why using a multi-channel approach is best. After sending a dunning letter it is best to follow up with a phone call and an email. This allows the recipient to respond when they can as well as it is a reminder in case they have forgotten about the original mail.
But, the most difficult part of this method is having the correct address, phone number, and email address. People are constantly moving, changing their phone numbers and simply not sharing their email addresses.
Land In Their Inbox
A very common question is “Are dunning emails effective?”. If you are to look at dunning emails as an isolated event and put all your eggs in that one basket, then no, they are not effective. But solely relying on email for dunning letters has never been suggested and it is certainly not what we are suggesting. Instead, this will be a reminder tool as part of your messaging strategy.
The collection rate increases when leveraging email along with other mediums such as phone and direct mail. Because, let’s be honest, who is going to change their address with their collection agency to receive more notices? By verifying your email addresses, you can be alerted to those that may bounce, saving your reputation score. When you are sending thousands of letters keeping your reputation score high is crucial to your business. This allows you to hit the inbox and avoid being caught in spam or junk folders due to your reputation score.
Send To The Right Address
Sending to the right address can be more difficult than it seems. With people frequently moving and not updating their addresses it could be weeks or months until you find out that they have moved and now you are stuck without an address. This is why regular maintenance of your data is so important. It allows you to keep your direct mail automation going without thinking about sending it to the wrong person.
Dunning Letter Outsource
Taking it to the next level would be a complete dunning letter outsource. This would take the task of updating your database, composing letter templates, printing, addressing, and sending your dunning letters and offloading them on a third party. This process removes unnecessary hassle and tasks from our business so you can focus on the process of collecting overdue accounts.
The process of dunning letter outsourcing isn’t just for your direct mail pieces. This also includes the dunning email process. By having another company focus on keeping your reputation score high, sending your dunning emails, and managing that process you can feel assured that you are not missing any vital steps.
But Who?
Now all of these different steps in the dunning mail process as well as the dunning email process may seem like a job for 3-4 companies, 2 tools, and an internal team to monitor. This is not the case. Companies like Cleanlist are able to perform all of these tasks with ease and have been for other companies for years. As Cleanlist is Canada’s largest provider of consumer data they have full coverage of the country and use dozens of data sources to ensure their data is up-to-date and accurate.
To add to the list of conveniences, Cleanlist also provides a letter vault that allows you to view any letter templates from your history. This allows you to do proper testing on new templates and pick the ones that work for you. You can upload bulk PDF documents and tag them for specific times you want to use them.
These solutions are right for most companies as they allow them to hyperfocus on what their task at hand is, collecting. And allows for Cleanlist to focus on what they are best at, consumer data and campaign management. You won’t only see the difference in time back from these tasks but also an increase in ROI as you are able to reach more mailboxes and inboxes.
