4. General requirements in writing effective credit credit letters are dignified—seldom apologetic in tone. They evince a strong but imper sonal interest in the financial standing of the ad dressee. It is very important to treat all customers exactly alike. This is well illustrated in the successful letter just quoted. But even the fact that a firm has adopted this policy must not be unduly emphasized to the reader. It should be suggested rather than stated outright. Credit letters are also, almost invari ably, earnest and confidential in tone. They seldom lapse into good nature as is the case with many suc cessful sales letters. Yet they are always optimistic. They also impress the addressee with the fact that the firm's interest and his own are, after all, identical.
The successful credit correspondent encourages di rectness, frankness and honesty by exhibiting those qualities himself. It is to be expected that these char acteristics will be prominent in the personality of a good credit man ; and letters reflect the spirit of the man who writes them. Naturalness is also important. The credit letter can be dignified without seeming to be unnatural. In fact, all the chief characteristics of effective letters are to be found in effective credit letters, just as they are in all other types of successful business letters. As a knowledge of conditions in each individual case is also very important, it naturally fol lows that few form letters are effective.
5. Use of "educational" credit credit letters are designed to have an "educational" influence on the reader as well as to gain immediate re sults. This "education" consists, as a rule, in influenc ing customers to ad just themselves to the credit prac tices and policies of the house. The main idea is to make each customer thoroly familiar with these poli cies and practices, and to secure their favor and good will with respect to them, as well as to train customers to assume the right attitude toward credit matters in general.
For example, credit letters may impart such in formation as the following: the fact that a customer's credit relations with a house constitute a most im portant and serious business matter; that the credit department exists to serve the interests of the custo mer as well as those of the house; that the credit de partment always stands ready to help the customer solve his financial problems, and to give counsel con cerning market conditions and sales, as well as the amount of purchases that constitutes the right pro portion between assets and liabilities.
But the most important educational result of credit letters is that if they are sent promptly, as the occa sion arises, they make it plain that the house adheres strictly to its credit policies and practices. Such letters, while they are always frank, direct and defi nite, avoid a dictatorial tone. The correspondent writes as if he took it for granted the customer knows that the credit rules and regulations are made in his interests. Gradually, if the letters are sent regularly and promptly, the customer becomes "educated" up to the requirements of the house.
6. A letter refusing to allow discount.—A good example of a case in which the success of an educa tional letter depends much on the previous "training" that the customer has received from the house, is that in which a customer deducts a discount to which he is not entitled by the terms of the sale. The kind of letter that such an occasion calls for is considered by many credit men to be a difficult type of credit letter, or collection letter, as some prefer to call it. One house wrote the following successful letter to a cus tomer who had been well "educated." The addressee had deducted a discount to which he was not en titled: Dear Sir: Thank you for your remittance of $58.80, just received. Our 2 per cent discount, however, does not apply on pay ments made more than 10 days after the date of the state ment. We are therefore continuing a balance of $1.20 on this account, which you can add to your next payment.
Yours very truly, The writer of that letter made no attempt at all to be "diplomatic," except in so far as he took it for granted that the reader would not be offended and therefore wrote the kind of direct and fearless letter that the reader expected to get from this house. The following letter would not have been as effec tive: Dear Sir: We thank you sincerely for your remittance just received, but note that your bookkeeper has probably confused our terms with those of some other wholesale house. We allow the cash discount for payment in ten days. It does not apply in this case, as you will agree. The difference is $1.20. Please include this amount with your next order.