A great way to boost cash flow is to get your customers to pay you on delivery or even sooner. But how do you convince them to hand over payments that quickly? For that you need incentives. Here are some suggestions on how to get your customers to pay you promptly:
Make payments easy. No one likes to spend money, and we tend to take advantage of any excuse not to pay. To avoid this temptation to procrastinate, set up simple payment options for your customers, such as credit, debit, and online bill payment.
Invoice immediately. Don’t wait until the end of the month to send out bills—include them with delivery. Your customer may still not pay them right away, but you will probably receive your money earlier than if you’d delayed invoicing.
Offer discounts and incentives for early payments. Consider cutting a few percentage points off the bills of customers who pay in advance. This may cost you a bit of money up front, but in the long run it will save you the expense and hassle of trying to collect an overdue payment.
Check out our Blueprint for Business Check-up Tool for more ideas on how to reduce late payments. What do you think? Do you have any tips on how to get your customers to pay quickly?