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3 reasons to monitor your customers, suppliers and competitors

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Chapter 1

Company monitoring overview

Keep a close eye on accounts that are important to your business without the need to regularly check their company report. 

Changes to your customers, suppliers and competitors will continually pose new risks or opportunities for your business. With Creditsafe, you can identify these changes in real-time without the need to repeatedly check their company report, allowing you to act when it matters the most. Simply add them to monitoring and if there are any changes to the company, you will receive an email notification.

Company Monitoring - Quick overview

Chapter 1

Monitor your customers

Creditsafe customers can automatically monitor any company by simply searching for a report and viewing it. That company will be added to your default monitoring list and you will receive email alerts about future changes.

Upload a list of company numbers directly into the monitoring tool or supply the list to your account manager who will do the import for you. 

Monitoring your customers will help you understand if their risk changes and whether you need to adjust your credit offering or prioritise the collection of existing invoices.

Practical actions based on customer changes:

A decrease in credit score and limit

Carefully review your customer account and ensure that any outstanding balance is within the recommended credit limit. You may wish to consider collecting outstanding balances early if the amount outstanding by your customer is far greater than the maximum recommended credit limit.

An increase in credit score and limit

Companies who show signs of positive growth, profitability and demonstrate a history of positive payment behaviour will sometimes receive a credit score and limit increase. Reaching out to these customers and exploring new opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell additional goods or services could prove profitable for you.

Director and Shareholder changes

When a company changes board members or directors it could be a sign that the company is also changing ownership. It's worth reaching out to customers in order to better understand the reason for a change in ownership or directors. Companies who have multiple director changes are more likely to experience financial difficulty.

Company address changes

Receiving alerts about customer address changes allows you to ensure you are sending invoices or goods to the correct address. It's always worth verifying address changes with your customers and updating your internal records.

Chapter 1

Monitor your suppliers

It makes no difference what business you are in, suppliers and vendors play a crucial role in your company's success. Having a formalized system in place to track your suppliers and vendors is essential to the smooth operation of your business.

Ensure suppliers are financially stable.

Ensuring your suppliers remain financially stable is crucial to maintaining a robust supply chain. Carefully review suppliers who show signs of financial distress to determine if their collapse could have damaging implications on your own business.

Keep track of senior staff resignations.

A reliable indicator that a supplier is in trouble is high-level staff resignations. If directors or other senior members of the business are leaving, ask why.

Monitor reputational risk.

Reputation is crucial to the success of any business. Being associated with a company with a bad reputation can have a damaging impact on your business. Monitor the reputational risk of your suppliers carefully and take action as needed.

Monitoring your suppliers ensures a stable supply chain. It's important to consider exploring alternatives if your current supplier is showing signs of financial distress.

Chapter 1

Monitor your competitors

If a competitor happens to stop trading, this could be an opportunity for you to reach out to their customers and suppliers to grow your own business. Keeping track of other changes, including mergers and acquisitions, often reveals what a competitor is planning in the future and might give useful business insight. 

Act fast when competitors go out of business.

In a booming market or a recession, there will be a lot of competitors that come and ultimately go out of business. As sad as it is for that company and its staff, it is something you can take advantage of to grow and improve your own business.

Review mergers and acquisitions.

Get alerts about company mergers and acquisitions and understand if your competitors are expanding their business by entering new markets or buying market share.

Track the growth of your competitors. If a competitor is growing quicker than your own business explore what they are doing differently.

Chapter 1

Additional help and support

Our online Help Hub is home to our product user guides, FAQs and video overviews so that you always have immediate access to product information when you need it. Follow these step-by-step instructions on how to start monitoring your customers, suppliers and competitors with Creditsafe. 

You can also submit a question to our Customer Support team via our Help Hub. The majority of our queries are resolved on the very same day.

Alternatively, why not reach out to your Account Manager for additional support and advice, or schedule a personalised training session with our dedicated Training team.