What do you do when a customer goes quiet after the job is finished?
Work is done, they were happy on the day, and now the phone goes to voicemail and the emails do not land.
At what point do you stop being polite? And has anyone had a customer resurface months later with a complaint that was really about not wanting to pay?
1 reply
I think the key is having a consistent follow-up process rather than chasing randomly.
Something simple like a friendly reminder when the invoice becomes due, a firmer follow-up a few days later, then a clear final reminder if there's still no response. Keeping the invoice, customer details and previous follow-ups together also makes it much easier to see who actually needs chasing.
This is actually one of the problems I've been looking at while building HEGEVA AI for UK small businesses and trades — reducing the admin around invoices and preparing follow-ups so they don't simply get forgotten.
I'm interested to hear what tradespeople here currently do — manual reminders, accounting software, WhatsApp, or something else?