B2B collections is misunderstood as either harassment or as accounting hygiene. Done right, it's a structured workflow that recovers cash, preserves relationships, and surfaces customer problems before they become churn. This playbook is the shape we've seen work across hundreds of operators.
Why single-channel caps at 60%
Email-only collections recovers approximately 55-65% of B2B receivables. The cap isn't about message quality — it's about reach. Some customers don't read AP email regularly. Some treat email like a queue and process invoices monthly. Some have moved the right person; your email goes to a defunct address. To break above 60%, you need a second channel.
The five-stage funnel
- Reminder (0-7 days past due). Soft, friendly, assumes good faith.
- First demand (8-21 days). Direct, business-tone. Names the document.
- Escalation (22-45 days). Adds a phone call. AM gets involved.
- Pre-legal (46-75 days). Formal letter, real legal involvement. Only use if you'll actually pursue.
- Write-off review (76+ days). Decision required.
Multi-channel after day 21
Email handles stages 1-2. Stage 3 onward, add voice. A short, polite phone call at day 22 lifts response rate ~3x over email-only at this stage. Voice can be human or AI agent (the AI route at scale is the larger lift). WhatsApp adds another channel in MX/BR/ES where it's the cultural default.
Tone that doesn't burn the customer
B2B collections is not consumer collections. Your customer probably owes you because of a routing problem at their end, not malice. Five rules:
- Lead with assumption of good faith.
- Name the specific document — invoice number, amount, due date.
- Make the next step trivial (payment link, billing contact email, attached statement).
- Escalate by named human, not by tone.
- Never threaten what you won't do.
Segmentation that protects strategic accounts
Treating a Fortune-500 customer the same as a Tail customer is a fast way to lose the Fortune-500. Segment by lifetime value:
- Strategic (top 20% by LTV) — human-only outreach, no automation. AM notified at stage 1.
- Core (next 60%) — standard cadence.
- Tail — tighter thresholds, voice triggers at day 14 instead of day 22.
What 80% recovery looks like
Multi-channel cadence + tiered segmentation + a workflow that runs without manual triage. The teams that hit 80% are not working harder; they're running a system that does the same work in less hours. OMB Cloud Collections is structured around exactly this workflow.