By Andrew Athineos, Managing Director, Athena Collections®
Myths vs Reality
Commercial truths every business owner needs to hear.
The Myth
“TI’ll give them another chance. They deserve it.”
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Why People Believe It
Most people believe everyone deserves some grace, and a first missed payment can genuinely be a one-off caused by ordinary circumstances.
There’s a hope that being understanding now will make firmness unnecessary later, and that patience will be rewarded with the debtor sorting themselves out.
Reacting firmly to a single missed payment can feel like an overreaction, especially with a customer who has no prior history of problems.
Offering another chance feels like the fair, reasonable response, and it often is, the first time.
The Reality
One chance, offered clearly and with conditions, is entirely reasonable. What often happens instead is chance after chance, each one extending the debtor’s runway at the creditor’s expense, with no criteria for when “another chance” stops being offered.
Genuine, temporary circumstances are usually explained specifically, with a concrete plan attached, not just a vague request for a bit more patience.
Without any conditions attached, “another chance” becomes the default answer every time, and a default with no limit isn’t really a decision anymore. It’s a habit.
The point of offering a chance is to see whether the situation improves. If each chance simply leads to a request for another one, that’s information, not bad luck.
The Commercial Impact
Repeated, unconditional chances function as interest free lending with no fixed term and no clear end point.
Businesses that hand out the most chances often accumulate the largest and oldest balances, not because their customers are unusually unreliable, but because nothing changes the pattern until it’s very advanced.
Each new chance also resets the clock on further action. The option to escalate gets pushed later and later, usually until the balance owed has grown considerably beyond where it started.
Case Study
A business gave a struggling customer four separate “one more chances” over eight months, accepting a new verbal promise each time without ever putting a plan or a date in writing. By the time the business stopped extending chances and asked for a formal commitment, the balance had grown substantially, and the customer entered insolvency shortly afterwards.
Andrew’s Verdict
“Another chance” is fine once, provided it comes with clear terms attached: something in writing, a specific date, an agreed amount. Without those conditions, it stops being a considered decision and becomes the default answer every time, and defaults don’t have limits unless you set one.
The Bottom Line
Giving someone a chance isn’t the problem. Giving unlimited, unconditional chances with no way of measuring whether the situation is actually improving is. The difference is whether each chance comes with a clear, written condition attached.
Ask yourself: how many chances has this account already had, and what specifically would need to be different this time for it not to become another one?
Your first step should be downloading our FREE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO DEBT COLLECTION, a comprehensive resource designed to help you navigate recovery with confidence. We’re here to look at your specific situation and give you the straight facts, even if that means advising you to cut your losses and focus on preventative measures for next time. If you’re looking for a partner to step in, you can easily request a transparent quote via our PRICING PAGE.