I am sometimes accused of being too nice to the point of costing the firm money for not being agressive in this manner. My response is that we're doing just fine and if my gravestone ends up reading "He was too nice a guy",... I think I can live with that legacy.
Believe it or not, we have a very very high collection rate BECAUSE I refuse to berate belittle and step on people who are down. We work with people in all sorts of ways, many times to the dislike of the client. But my job is to get results, not be right.
My motto is this: "I don't want to be right, I want to get paid."
Too often, people are more concerned about stepping on people than simply working with them to resolvethese issues.
To me, I have turned many many debtors into clients because of how I deal with people.