An email-first strategy has proven to be affordably effective when it comes to collection and revenue generation. Aside from eliminating paper mails, customers prefer getting emails before calls or social media messages because an email-first strategy promotes personalized communication. Customers read and get to act, which leads to better conversion — generating more revenues.
Before we go further, let’s identify what a collection email is.
A collection email is a reminder sent to customers who are indebted to a company to remind them of their accounts receivable. It usually contains outstanding payment, due date, invoice numbers, required actions, and references of previous emails.
For your collection emails to drive revenue, you must first have some things in place. Here are five things that must be in place for an effect collections email:
1. Consent of your customers
Despite unsolicited emails being legal in the United States, it’s imperative to get customers’ consent before sending them emails, especially in a highly regulated industry like debt collections. Asking for customers’ consent helps build a better relationship between you and your customers. That way, customers can react positively to your emails and not flag them as SPAM.
You can get consent through your website, forms, or any direct communication with your customers. It’s also advisable to send consent along with your call scripts if an agency is handling your collections.
2. Email content
The content of the email matters so much that it can speed up or slow down accounts receivable payments. Your email content is determined by the stages of your email campaign, or the different types of collection emails you’ll be sending to consumers.
What makes up different collection emails?
The first collection of emails should be empathetic, considerate, professional, and contain all the important details. The second collection of emails should be assertive but friendly. State your previous collection attempts, the consequences of payment delays, and the exact step customers should take.
The third collection email highlights the multiple collection attempts while professionally reminding the customer that you’ll have to involve a lawyer or allow a collections company to take over. These emails are no different from the second collections of emails, but they’re more assertive in their language and tone.
The final collection email acts as more of a legal notice. At this juncture, you’ll inform the customers that you’ve reached out to a lawyer or that a collection agency has taken over the collection. This email should include the invoice and amount as well.
3. Experiment with your emails
Experimenting with your collection emails can help switch things up. You can experiment with different types of text at the different stages of collection emails. For example, you may find it to be a benefit to add repayment plans to the second collection of emails. That way, customers will find it easier to submit their payments. You can also tweak the subject lines, tone, and the time you send your email. Your goal for experimenting is to find what works best for your customers.
4. Maintain good data practices
One mistake with data can cost you a lot. That’s the reason why you must take data practices seriously. An email-first strategy exceeds sending emails. There is background work you must do to quickly recover accounts receivables. One of these tasks is to verify that you’ve got the correct email addresses. Having the correct email addresses make the whole emailing process faster and more transparent.
Avoid SPAM traps by getting customers’ emails from them during signing up. This not only makes your email list more credible, it shows mailbox providers that you’re not spamming random people.
5. Analyze your emails
Analysis tells you how customers engage with your emails, plus if the emails are converting. You’ll know the KPIs (key performance indicators) to track when you analyze your emails. Also, through reporting and analysis, you’ll measure the following metrics:
- Delivered emails
- Open rates
- Bounce rates
- Overall rates
- Conversion rates
- Clickthrough rates,
- SPAM complaints
- Customers who unsubscribed.
6. Track revenue generated through email
You’re investing in an email-first strategy to generate revenue in addition to keeping your customers and prospects informed. Therefore, it’s advantageous to track the revenue you’re earning from emails to help position yourself better.
Perhaps you discover that you’re spending more than you’re making. If that’s the case, it’s a sign that there’s something wrong. You can either go back to the drawing board to find out what could be wrong, change your strategy, or try a different approach. Tracking revenues is achieved by adding trackable links as your CTAs in the collection emails. These links will track calls and self-actions from customers getting through your email campaigns.
Overall, these strategies can help organizations who are looking to discover new ways to connect with their customers via email. That said, for the debt collections industry, organizations should know what the guidelines are to make sure that they’re staying within the expectations of the industry. If you’re interested in learning more about how Capital Recovery uses email in our own strategy, reach out to start a conversation today.