Can anyone give me a ballpark figure for the costs to a small business of collecting 5 to 50 monthly fees by direct debit, either with our own arrangement with a bank or using a bureau service of some type. Setup cost, monthly fixed cost, cost per DD would be handy.
I'm at the "is this worth it" stage.
me.
For that amount of transactions it will probably be cheaper for you to print out 50 standing order authorities - not direct debits.
They are somewhat more difficult to manage though, if the user decides to cancel we might overlook it or if we need to change the amount it generates more work.
for 50 customers, how much effort is this?
If the user decideds to cancel a DD you might overlook it.
No it doesn't. Changing the SO amount requires you to write to all your customers.
Changing the DD amount requires you to write to all your customers and to do other work. (Or were you going to miss out the write to all your customers part?)
tim
In message , "tim(yet another new home)" writes
If a customer cancels a SO mandate the beneficiary isnt told and will only realise when the dosh doesnt turn up. Even then B wont know the reason, it could be that the customer had no dosh that month and it will be paid next month, or that they have died etc.,
When a DD mandate is cancelled the originator is told right away and is given the reason i.e. 'customer kicked bucket' 'mandate cancelled' etc.,
But customers are notorious for not amending the SOs in time or doing it correctly and I would reckon that in 50 clients 12-15 will do it wrongly in some form.
Yes, that worried me too!
Innuendo alert! Why did you say "so called"?
Because the defence infantry platoon, sorry I mean 'customer service managers', will always try and fob you off first.
So there you are in the branch manager's office and he tries to fob you off. You slap yourself on the forehead as though you'd suddenly remembered an urgent matter, stand up out of your seat like a thing possessed, grab the receiver off the phone on his desk and ask him "Excuse me, I need to make an urgent call. How do I get an outside line on this?". Momentarily stunned by your bizarre behaviour, he mutters "Dial 9". So you dial 9999 and ask for the police. Do you think that might make him think you mean business even before you get the chance to tell the other end you want to report an attempted fraud?
What's a branch manager, and what does a branch manager's office look like?
The most senior member of staff to be found in a branch. You do know what a branch is, don't you? They're not as easy to find as they used to be, but they do exist. What does it look like? Well, each branch manager probably has two offices. One kitted out luxuriously with comfy armchairs, free coffee on tap, and perhaps even some cakes; this is the one where customers are received to whom they want to sell something. The other, reserved for people to be told off for going over their spending limit or not paying loans back quickly enough, or who want to make complaints, probably looks like one of those medi-evil torture chambers, with a rack and one of those blade pendulum things, cats o' nine tails, morning stars, etc.
they'll get a notification / invoice for the amount. The variability may be inherent in the service in some cases, like a phone bill, so writing in the way you suggest isn't required.
Phil
thanks, there are bureau services acting as intermediaries that make it easier to get into (at a price) some of these are run by the banks.
Phil
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