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All companies occasionally make payment mistakes and will send out an erroneous duplicate payment. When you get one, do not hesitate to call. For any customer payment error, call them immediately when they send you too much money or funds that do not belong to your firm. You cannot keep payments made by your customer that were intended to go to other unrelated outside vendors’ invoices. Your delay to call can suddenly backfire.
Call the customer and inform them of the mistake now. You have no other option. You can at the same time request that they make a payment to you if they owe you money as you return the check to them. Ask them if they want the check defaced prior to mailing it back to them in order to be safe. Offer to fax or scan a copy of it for them if they request it. Do not delay in calling them the same day that this erroneous payment occurs. These funds might arrive in the form of a hard check or an incoming wire transfer. No matter how you are paid, call and get them on the telephone right away.
Allow your sales person always to do the good deed. Remember that the best person to make this call is your sales person on the account. He or she can call the buyer and inform them your company got a check that does not belong to them and you want the customer to tell you what to do with the check. In allowing your sales person to be the ‘hero’ on the telephone, you tell the customer’s buyer that this guy can be trusted in all aspects of business, even when paid too much, an ultimate test. Take a few minutes to contact your sales person so he can make the call and inform the customer of the overpayment.
Do not involve the sales rep on a past due account until the situation is dire. Do not involve this sales representative on a past due account unless it has grown dangerously old or to the point of legal action. You can keep him insulated working along with the customer to encourage them to get their past dues paid.
Contact the customer the same day you get the money. Do not delay when you receive duplicate monies. Call those customers quickly. You cannot allow your customer to discover himself that he has paid you twice by mistake and you never called him. This is very bad. Everyone that works in that organization will believe your firm tried deliberately to keep quiet about this whether true or not. You cannot afford not to have your sales person call them. Train everyone in collections and on your sales staff, that the customer is notified the same day when they make this type of mistakes. You must proactively prove to all your customers you are a great vendor and can be trusted on your word.
