[Rick Carver]

Tis the time of the year to tweak our contracts so we may AVOID any problems and loss's this season.
I have tweaked our contracts to death over the years and still add and subtract items from the T & C's.
I still keep in place a few things that have saved me tons of time and money.

One thing we incorporated into our contracts and made part of through the T & C's is a QAR. Quality Assurance Report. Simply put, it is agreed to that within 24 hr's after completion of the job, the customer agrees to sign our QAR. On the contract it also explains we WILL NOT even begin the invoice process for a full 24 hr's after completeing the job which allows the customer to contact us (with several ways to do so) with any concern or complaint! If we do not hear from the customer in this amount of time (CONTRACTUALLY AGREED TO) we will then invoice for the agreed terms.
NOW,,, because of this we were able to experience a huge decrease in collections. A N D,,, when this system was tested IN COURT,,,, the judge wouldn't even take the time to listen to the story because the first issue with ANY CONTRACTED agreement is which part of it is or was broken or not followed!

Now the really cool part,,,,,

Because I only want to do business right, and give my customer every opportunity to be satisfied with us, I offer this QAR for reassurance of our honesty and professionalism,,,,, right? After all we all want to know when our customers may not be satisfied,,,, but we cannot allow ourselves to be taken advantage of,,,,,

Soooooo,,,,,, because the customer didn't contact us in the AGREED CONTRACTED amount of time the Judge has no position other then to find for us through a summary judgement (I think it was called) which means that the customer must PAY ME NOW,,,, and then has to go back and file action against me to recover whatever they think is wrong!!! Also,,,, you may be able to actually file a theft of services complaint criminally against them. Make sure yous check with your lawyers how to set this up for your state etc.
QAR's work both for maint. and installs. But for Maint we just left a leave behind letting the cust. know we were there today,,,, on the seasonal contract with them we state we will do this and that they have 24 hr's to contact us if our cut/bed maint. wasn't right etc. If they didn't then they get invoiced and have to pay.

Other Anti collection tools are things like Double your money back Service guarantee's and plant warranties etc.

Rick