I attend quite a few business networking meetings. You know the sort of thing; everyone there is very polite and pleasant. You go to them thinking that this group of individuals should really have a need of my services. After about fifteen minutes, the penny drops that they all there to sell and not to buy. Exactly like me.

Lately at these meetings, the topic of conversation has turned towards outsourcing.  In itself, a major symptom of the current economic climate that has forced business managers to look at every aspect of their business in an effort to be more cost effective and improve their profitability.

Putting my cards on the table: I’m an ardent supporter outsourcing. For me it makes perfect sense to outsource elements of my business to organisations or individuals who are better equipped to manage that particular process. Tom Peters, management consultant, author, business leader and former advisor to the White House said it best: “Do what you do best, outsource the rest”.

I accept that I may be bias, but the one area I would outsource is Credit Control. Many people wrongly think that Credit Control is Debt Collection. For people in the Collection Industry the two processes are miles apart. While it’s true that most companies that provide a credit control service will also perform some debt recovery, the superior ones will have separate dedicated divisions.

Our Agency specialises in high Quality Credit Control. A quality Credit Control company will allocate an Account Manager to every client and that manager will become completely engrossed in his or her client. The Account Manager should not only feel like they are part of the client’s company, but also understand and fill all of their specific needs.

Outsourced Credit Control should be able to deal with complaints, queries and even be able to take orders for their client. If an agency can’t or doesn’t offer this as part of their overall service, to my mind, it’s not true outsourcing.

The other point is that outsourced credit control needn’t mean the whole ledger, or even, that the client should not keep their own Credit Control team. Outsourcing can start at any age of the ledger. The service we perform for the vast majority of our clients starts at the 90-day age. Their internal teams concentrate on current debt, while we service everything once it’s hit the 90-day threshold.

Outsourcing your credit control should not be more expensive than existing in-house methods and does not come with added costs like PAYE, Sick pay, Holiday pay etc.

Outsourcing your credit control ensures that your ledger is constantly being worked.

We never make our clients sign a contract, as we let our level of service level earn their loyalty.  We know professional outsourced credit control service is not just about collecting money, it also has to been done correctly with no loss of goodwill and all clients should be kept up to date with reports and monthly meetings.

A professionally outsourced credit control service is what we concentrate on because it’s what we do best.

Gregg Jones – GB Pimney – 01234 218 618