初创公司如何让客户按时付款，一套从续约前 60 天开始的五步催款流程

We found it fairly easy once we worked out a good process. Treat your customers with respect, be understanding … and then respect the value of your service.

Here’s what we worked out:

#1. Communicate. Notify customers 60 days prior to renewal that they have 60 days to pay in a proper, corporate invoice.

Most small businesses will ignore this, but most larger companies will then get it over to finance/accounting, who will need > 30 days to pay. It will kick off the right processes in the later case. 30 days is not enough in the enterprise.

#2. Remind them again 30 days prior to renewal they need to pay now to avoid a service interruption. This is when you really get the attention of smaller businesses.

#3. Alert them 7 days prior to renewal, if still haven’t paid, a service interruption is coming on Date X, both in email — and a phone call.

#4. Provide a 7 day grace period after expiration, and allow an extension if they call and ask for one and promise the “check is in the mail” … AND ADD … a BIG RED BANNER ON THE WEBSITE you see every time you log in. That counts down until the service shuts down for nonpayment. So there are no surprises.

#5. At the low end, potentially shut it down after all those notices, etc. and allow instant resumption upon payment. At the higher-end, do NOT shut down a mission-critical service ever. But do not allow any feature changes, seat adds, etc. until payment received.

This resulted in a very high level of payment.

Our Core Vendor Was Down for 24 Hours. Our AI Agent Replaced Them Before They Came Back Up.