Did you know that roughly 19 percent of all orders are put on credit hold? That's an astonishing figure for a number of reasons, and much larger than we might have guessed before we conducted our recent benchmarking survey on the hold order process.

While that's a large number, the survey also revealed that the vast majority of those orders are released quickly and the customer never knows they've had an order in the "hold order queue."

Source: Credit Today's Benchmarking Survey on Hold Orders.

Thinking strategically, the above figure is particularly important when combined with two other sets of statistics gleaned from the survey:

• 36.2 percent of credit execs say more orders are held than is necessary, and
• 67.2 percent of credit departments say they are under "constant pressure" to release hold orders

And here are a few other interesting nuggets from the survey:

• 25 percent of companies report holding one out of every 4 orders

• The average credit exec spends two hours a day approving hold orders, with 24 percent spending 3 or more hours per day releasing orders

• 25 percent of credit execs report that they check the hold order queue 10 or more times per day

• Fully 25 percent of companies have a totally manual system of releasing orders

• Of those who are automated, most can't automate things they way they'd really like.

All of this indicates that hold orders are clearly an area in which we, as a profession, can and must continue to make improvements in our processes. Improvement here can yield benefits both from a risk-management and a process (ie, time and resources) standpoint.

Have you looked critically at your hold order processes lately?

If not, here are some areas to consider when setting goals:

• Reducing the number (and percentage) of orders held that do not need to be held;

• Cutting the average time hold orders are on hold; and

• Automating, or improving the existing the automation of your release process