Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE
VOL. LXX1X. No. 8
REVIEW
8ln
Published Every Satwday. Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., 383 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. Aig. 23, 1924
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Put the Collection Department to Work
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T
H E R E are a great many music merchants who, with the coming of September, are going to go
over their accounts receivable and experience a distinct shock when they realize the heavy percentage
of past due on their instalment contracts. At least the chart of past performances shows that every
Fall the problem develops of persuading customers to catch up on payments which have been allowed
to lapse during the vacation period.
Of course there are those merchants who, profiting by experience and good advice, give as much
or more attention to their collections as they do to their selling and by sustained effort throughout the Summer
manage to keep collections to a satisfactory point. But even these individuals find that the percentage of
past due reaches its peak between June and September.
It appears to be a condition that may be ameliorated but not entirely cured. In the first place,
while even the good business man may attend to his business affairs as usual during the Summer, he
shows at least a tendency to steal a little time here and there for seasonal recreation and is liable to let
slip those matters not kept constantly and strongly before him. A good collection system of course would
keep this type of individual from forgetting.
The big difficulty is met with in handling middle-class trade, for those of this type who go away
for one or two or several weeks are put to more or less additional expense as a result and show an inclina-
tion to evade current obligations until they get back to normal after Labor Day.
In any case, the customer is likely to spend as little time as possible at his regular residence during
the Summer which makes keeping contracts, except by delayed mail, a difficult problem.
Perhaps some time the collection system of the trade will be made so efficient that the Summer and
vacation excuses will not serve to interfere with the regular routine, for it is perfectly possible to get money
from customers during that season if the correct methods are used. A big finance corporation, for instance,
making collections on automobile paper direct, reports collections for July 97 per cent complete, and this
on July 20 with some days yet to go. Of course, there was a reason. The customers had substantial equities
in their cars, were doing business with a corporation of a calibre to impress them with its importance, and
knew that if the payments were not made the cars would be repossessed and what had been paid on them
lost to the buyers.
The unfortunate part of it is that the piano merchant, doing his own collecting on instalment accounts,
feels that except in unusual cases he cannot jeopardize the friendship of his customer by using or even
talking of drastic measures, especially when only one or two payments have slipped by. However, by persistence
he can accomplish much in keeping payments up to the mark, and still retain the friendship and patronage
of his client.
Regardless of what the Summer has brought forth in the matter of collections, there is no excuse
for letting things lag after September 1, when vacations are over and the business world has returned to
its usual routine.
If the past due accounts are at all numerous it will pay the retailer to concentrate his whole
organization for a week or so on the work of bringing them to date so that he will not be embarrassed
unduly by the collection question when Fall and Winter activities make themselves felt.
September represents an excellent time for house-cleaning and for jacking up accounts. If things are
put into good shape in the collection department at that time, it is not likely to cause worry when a large
volume of sales is being made and new accounts added to the list. Summer carelessness may be overcome
easily at this time, but if the accounts are allowed to lag a vacation excuse does not go, and the condition is in
a fair way to become chronic.
Cents