Reduce unpaid bills with payment reminders

Managing unpaid invoices is becoming commonplace for every business. While no one likes to chase their customers to get paid, it is part of running a business. If your customers’ invoices are not paid, you will have cash flow problems. When you send reminders to your customers to pay their bills online, it can feel like a hassle. But in reality, asking for timely payments will help you and your clients who will not pay penalties for late payments. Payment reminders demonstrate your professionalism and accuracy and will reduce unpaid bills.

How to remind my clients to pay their invoices?

Obviously, reminding a customer to pay their outstanding invoices takes some method and practice. There are foolproof strategies to increase the likelihood that your customers will read your payment reminder messages. Find out in this article how to remind your customers to pay their bills. You’ll also find templates you can use to send your payment reminder messages and reduce your unpaid bills.

Try SMS payment reminders for bad payers

For some time now, the use of mobile phones has been increasing. But in recent months, the phone has become our number one ally. Indeed, we spend more time sending messages, getting news from our friends or colleagues, staying connected via WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc. We spend about twice as much time on video calls as before. We check information and watch the news on our mobile phones.

This is why SMS is an incredibly effective tool to reduce unpaid bills. At RingRing we have found that approximately 80% of unpaid invoices can be successfully collected just by sending a payment reminder by SMS. As powerful as it is, be careful to use this tool properly. There are a few basic but important rules to follow when texting reminders.

10 efficient tips to reduce unpaid bills

In order to be really efficient, the ideal is to prepare most of your templates in advance. Plan the sendings and then change some variables in the content if necessary. Before giving you some concrete examples, we want to give you some tips to improve your SMS payment reminders.

1. Your call to action has to be clear and visible;
2. Don’t forget the amount and due date of the outstanding invoices;
3. Try to create a sense of urgency in your late payment reminder sample;
4. Test different time intervals to see what leads to the most clicks and payments;
5. Use powerful call to action triggers, the perfect call to action resonates with your audience;
6. Include obvious information such as the identity, name and phone number of the sender in your message;
7. Pay attention to the appearance of automation, stay human as if you were personally sending the reminder;
8. Add a link to make a secure online payment, sometimes a short link to the sender’s website is also efficient;
9. Set the frequency of sending messages, don’t bombard your customers but make sure they have enough time to act;
10. Respect the basic rules when sending SMS, no emojis or abbreviations, pay attention to the tone used and the permission to send an SMS.

Thanks to our expertise, we offer you 5 typical examples of payment reminders by SMS. Use these templates to reduce unpaid bills and remind your customers or stakeholders that they have outstanding invoices.

Reduce unpaid invoices while listening to your customers

Late payments happen to all companies and customers. The most important thing is how and to whom you communicate. Do not hesitate, if possible, to propose alternatives to your stakeholders. Discounts, payment plans or other solutions that will improve your customer relations and keep your cash flow up to date. Diversifying the types of messages and reminders you send permits a better customer experience. It also secures loyalty to your company. If you’re ready to get started and learn more about how SMS can help you manage late payments, try our platform today.