Worrying about how to ask a client for payment politely can take your focus completely away from growing your business.
How good would it feel if all clients paid on time and you had no more overdue invoices? Wow! Wouldn’t that make life much easier and much less stressful?
Here are a few simple, proven tips on how to ask a client for payment politely. Really what you’re doing is making sure your clients are satisfied. Your clients will appreciate your great service. They will get to like you. Then they will be extra motivated to pay you on time.
Building strong business relationships with your clients is the focus here.
You may have heard the saying ‘people buy from people they like’. Well, once you learn how to ask a client for payment politely, you’ll find that clients will get to like you and what follows is that your client will pay you because ‘people pay people they like’ too.
How to Ask a Client for Payment Politely:
Investing some time ‘upfront’ is a good way to make sure your client is satisfied. Then when you politely ask them for payment, they’ll have no reason not to pay.
- Before you contact your customer make sure your invoice is correct.
- Ensure your banking details are visible on your invoice to encourage your clients to pay on time.
- Are your terms of trade clear on your invoice? Make sure your client can see them.
- Learn how to write a simple invoice and remember to print the due date on your invoice.
- Make sure the invoice went to the right place.
- Arrange to send your invoices by email; they get there the same day!
- Before your invoice is due, make a ‘courtesy’ call to find out if your client is satisfied with your service.
- If your client raises a query, make sure it’s fixed fast. Clients don’t pay invoices with queries.
- Always provide good service to your clients.
Sometimes it’s difficult to know how to ask a client for payment politely because we’re concerned that our client might ask something we don’t know the answer to.
If you follow the tips above, you will be much more informed about your client and will have started to build a relationship. Once you have the relationship and the knowledge of their account, it will be much easier to politely ask the client for payment.
To your business success!
