Automate Print & Mail: Payment Terms Change Letter to Customer

How To Effectively Send Payment Terms Change Letter to Customer?

One of the critical elements companies underestimate when it comes to forming long-term relationships with their customers is payment terms. Providing transparent and flexible payment terms is essential to creating a good customer relationship. It includes sending payment terms change letter to customer to ensure seamless communication with your customers.

Payment terms are a set of details that outline the terms and conditions a customer or client must follow for making a business payment. It primarily establishes how and when the customer must make their payments, including their payment method. Establishing, maintaining, and changing payment terms with customers is a delicate matter.

Payment terms are most usually associated with invoice payments. B2B companies and other organisations facilitating credit payments to their customers also deal with payment terms. The payment terms form an agreement between the customer and the business. Sending a payment terms letter to customer enables you to set payment expectations from your customers.

What Is A Payment Terms Change Letter To Customers?

A payment terms change letter to customer enables you to notify the customer about any changes to the payment terms. Informing the customer about a difference in payment terms is just as important as conveying the original payment terms.

Business organisations must make it a point to discuss changing payment terms with customers because it can negatively impact their business. Suppose the customer is unaware of the changes to the payment terms. In that case, the customer cannot make the payment as per your new terms and it can lead to delayed or inaccurate payments.

Not receiving payments on time could lead to several problems, including disrupting your company’s cash flow. A disruption to the cash flow could have a domino effect on your other operations and damage your relationship with your customers and business partners. From this, you can understand why sending a payment terms letter to customers from your business is crucial.

Why Is It Crucial To Discuss Changing Payment Terms With Customers?

The most critical reason you should discuss changing payment terms with customers is that it can lead to cash flow problems. It is not always detrimental to your business’s cash flow to change payment terms.

Some changes in the payment terms may have virtually no effect on the customer. There is also the possibility that you change the payment terms to benefit the customer as a part of boosting customer loyalty. But in any case, you must discuss changing payment terms with customers because it is in your company’s and its customers’ best interest.

For instance, say that you want to provide more flexible credit terms to your customers. In this case, you can send a letter to customer reducing credit terms to inform them about the change. Moreover, it can benefit your business by letting them know your efforts to make payments easier for the customer.

Similarly, you can also send a letter to announce credit term change that requires the customer to pay more. Typically, companies don’t change their credit terms unless they don’t have any other option in front of them. Whatever the case, you must inform the customer early to ensure they can make the new payments on time.

Imagine that you never announce credit term changes to your customers. The customer has no way of knowing about the new payment terms change, and they go about their business as usual. In most cases, you cannot do much once the customer makes the usual payment.

When their payment finally comes through, you may already be neck-deep in cash flow problems. Besides that, there is also the chance that you sent the payment terms letter to the customer, but they never opened it. You must consider the possibility of your client falsely claiming that they never got the announcement.

Why Should You Use Multiple Communication Channel To Send A Payment Terms Change Letter To Customers?

Above, we discussed how the customer might miss the letter you send to announce credit term change to your customers. The customer may unintentionally or intentionally miss your announcement. Hence, you must do everything to ensure proper communication with your customer.

Consider sending your payment terms letter to customer through different channels to ensure proper communication. Most businesses prefer using email to send payment terms because it is cheap and more convenient. But the thing with emails is that they often go unnoticed or unread by the recipients.

Suppose you are using a registered mail to send the letter. In that case, you have official proof of sending the payment terms letter to customer. With a communication channel like email, there is no additional layer of security like this.

Moreover, using different channels to announce credit term change lets you ensure that the customer receives the message. Even if the customer claims to miss the email, you still have the safety net of postal mail to fall back on.

Technically, the more channels you use to send the payment terms letter to customers, the less the chance of them missing your message. It is best to use at least two communication channels to inform the customer about the payment terms change. But, you must include a letter via registered mail if you want reliable proof of communication.

How To Send Payment Terms Change Letter To Customer?

As discussed above, using multiple channels to announce credit term change to your customers is vital. Use different communication channels, such as mail, email, and even phone calls. But calling every customer may not be practical if you have an extensive customer base.

You may face the same challenges if you are using a manual process to send your postal mailers. Writing hundreds or thousands of letters by hand to announce credit term changes is impractical. But with automation, you can change the whole thing around.

Advanced automated solutions like PostGrid enable you to quickly and efficiently communicate with your customers. Below, we discuss some of the ideal communication channels you can use to announce credit term changes to your customers.

Automated Email

Likely, you are already using an automated email solution to communicate with your customers. You can use the same system to announce credit term changes to your customers. It is high time you got an automated direct mail system if you don’t already have one. The only problem with email is that the customer may not notice it, and it can remain unopened.

Face-To-Face And Phone Calls

Face-to-face interaction is the safest way to discuss changing payment terms with customers. However, we know that is hardly the practical approach for all your customers. You can communicate face-to-face with your most loyal customers or even call them. Suppose you want to share the same information with a broader audience. In that case, it is best to use an automated solution.

Automated Mailers

The best way to officially announce credit term changes to your customers is through registered mail. As we discussed above, it provides you with proof of delivery of the letter, ensuring that your communication is secure.

The best part is that you can automate the whole thing using an automated solution like PostGrid. It enables you to integrate direct mail API into your CRM solution to personalise your letters quickly. PostGrid lets you send everything from invoices to payment terms change letter to customer with the click of a button.

Furthermore, it is the perfect direct mail marketing tool for your business. You can even bulk mail your letters and announce credit term changes to everyone in your contact list. All you have to do is create a template and upload the mailing list as a CSV file into PostGrid, and the system will take care of the rest for you.

Get a FREE demo from PostGrid to try out how automation works to send payment terms change letter to customer and ensure smooth communication with them.