In today’s dynamic business environment, collection agencies are embracing advanced tools like speech analytics and quality assurance (QA) departments to monitor collector calls, ensuring compliance with legal regulations. While adherence to these regulations is crucial, it’s equally important to embrace a broader perspective, echoing the sentiments of Starbucks’ Founder, Howard Schultz, who famously stated, “We are not in the coffee business serving people, we are in the people business serving coffee.” This viewpoint underscores the significance of prioritizing customer experience even in industries traditionally perceived as transactional.
Customer Experience Matters
Many collection agencies have made significant investments in technology and have developed call scripts to ensure compliance with legal requirements, such as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), amended by Regulation F, and various state regulations. The one area that is sometimes overlooked in call monitoring programs is the customer experience. Why does the customer experience matter?
- The customer experience reflects directly on the creditor.
- Positive experiences may preserve other relationships the customer has with the creditor.
- Customers may engage with collection efforts in the future when circumstances change.
- It’s simply the right thing to do.
Understanding Customer Experiences: Why Opinions Vary and What it Really Means
While customer experience is influenced by subjective factors, such as individual preferences and perceptions, there are common elements that contribute to a positive or negative customer experience. I have monitored thousands of collections calls for various collection agencies. Without fail, there are five elements that consistently contribute to a negative customer experience:
- Prolonged Hold Times: Whether it’s lengthy wait times at the beginning of the call or while a collector seeks assistance from a supervisor, extended hold times frustrate customers.
- Call Transfer Hassles: The experience of being bounced around from one collector to another, especially when multiple transfers are involved, intensifies customer frustration.
- Poor Engagement: Collector failing to establish an open and engaging dialogue with customers worsens dissatisfaction. This encompasses talking over customers, using inappropriate language, or phrasing, and adopting an unpleasant tone.
- Lack of Creditor Knowledge: Customers expect collectors to be well-versed in the creditor’s payment options, including settlement terms. When collectors lack this familiarity, it hampers the resolution process and leaves customers feeling dissatisfied.
- Impatience and Escalations: Collectors displaying impatience and prematurely escalating calls to supervisors heighten tensions and escalate negative experiences for customers, rather than working towards amicable resolutions.
Cultivating Success through Creditor Engagement in Collection Agency Practices
Collection agencies often rely on call monitoring programs, leveraging resources like speech analytics, QA departments, and managerial oversight. Speech analytics help identify trends and ensure compliance, QA departments monitor predefined criteria, and managers offer feedback to optimize collector performance. While these tools are crucial for performance optimization, the creditor’s understanding of their products and services, along with their expectations for customer experience, plays a pivotal role. Call calibration sessions offer an excellent avenue for creditors to actively engage in the collection process.
Call Calibration Sessions
Facilitating call calibration sessions with involvement from creditors, collection agency QA teams, managers, and collectors presents a distinctive opportunity for constructive dialogue. These sessions yield insights that can enhance performance and elevate the customer experience. In a recent call calibration session where all parties, including the collector, actively participated, the collector’s input proved invaluable. Their enthusiasm in sharing that the creditor was directly involved not only highlighted the significance of such collaboration but also motivated other collectors.
Summary
While investments in technology and compliance measures are essential, actively involving creditors and recognizing the significance of customer experience can profoundly impact success in the collection process. Through initiatives like call calibration sessions that foster constructive dialogue among all stakeholders, collection agencies can enhance performance and elevate the customer experience, ultimately driving positive outcomes and industry standards.
Author: Bev Evancic
Bev.Evancic@ResourceManagement.com
Bev Evancic is a Senior Vice President at Resource Management Services, Inc. Bev joined RMS in 1995. Prior to employment at RMS, Bev worked as the Collection and Recovery Manager at AT&T Universal Card, Citi, and Federated Department Stores. Bev started in the collection industry as a collector. As a returned check and private label credit card collector, Bev gained a basic understanding of the collection industry that has not changed with the introduction of regulations. Her collection philosophy begins with the idea that businesses and customers benefit from preserving the customer relationship. First, collectors need to attempt to contact customers when it is convenient for the customer to discuss his/her financial condition and willingness/ability to pay. Second, you never collect money by intimidating or threatening customers. Third, businesses must make sure the debt is valid. She has managed all phases of collection and recovery operations, including automated dialer units, bankruptcy, and legal units, skip tracing units, internal collections, outside collection agency networks, and Consumer Credit Counseling. As a Consultant for Resource Management Services, Inc., Bev has spearheaded collection and recovery best practices reviews for many top credit grantors. She is the author of “Recovery Management: Collecting the Uncollectible Account.”
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