Recovering debts by using Debt Collection Agencies: failure or smart thinking?

Collecting debts isn’t always easy. When you’ve got a small business of your own, you know that it can happen that some debtors don’t pay on time or just refuse to pay at all. After sending some friendly reminders about the owed money with no reply, you can decide to use a third-party Debt Collection Agency. A smart decision, some might say. Because DCAs have the time, expertise and resources that are required to collect your debts. But some businessmen and -women still feel like using a DCA is an acknowledgement that you’ve failed in recovering owed money. But is that true? Is recovering debts by using a DCA failing, or is it just smart thinking?

Disadvantages of using a DCA

Sure, using a DCA can have some disadvantages, but those disadvantages usually only occur when you use a unprofessional DCA. If the DCA has poor communication skills, you might lose a customer and if the DCA you use has a heavy-handed approach, changes are your reputation will be damaged. But if you use a professional DCA with enough experience, you’ll soon notice that worrying about losing your customer or damaging your reputation, isn’t necessary at all. Also, there’s no need to worry that the cost of recovery is too high. Trust us, nothing could be further from the truth.

Advantages of using a DCA

As we’ve said before, a DCA has the time, expertise and resources to recover your owed money. And if you worry about the costs of recovering, most of the agencies offer a ‘no collection, no fee’ service. If they don’t collect your money, you don’t have to pay a fee for their service. It’s kind of the industry standard and it’s fair, isn’t it? If you hire a DCA, you usually collect debts a lot faster, which means a lot of time can be saved. Time that you can invest in you business, not in collecting your money. And if your customer still refuses to pay, the DCA can instruct solicitors (of course, on your behalf) to take the next steps.

Our conclusion: using a DCA has way more advantages than disadvantages, if you select the right one. So make sure you hire a professional DCA with good reviews and collect the money your debtors owe you.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.