When you think about call monitoring in collections, what comes to mind? Most people picture someone with a headset, listening quietly in the background, checking off boxes for tone, professionalism, and compliance. That’s a start—but it’s a very narrow slice of what good oversight looks like.
If you want your oversight program to deliver real results—not just satisfy a checklist—you’ve got to dig deeper. Listening is the entry point. What you do after you listen is where the real oversight begins.
Listening Is Just the Start
Of course, tone and compliance matter. You want to know:
- Was the collector courteous and respectful?
- Did they demonstrate command of the account details?
- Were regulatory and contract requirements followed?
But here’s where oversight separates the good from the great. Once you’ve listened, you should be asking:
- Did the collector document the account accurately? Can the next person picking up this account see exactly what happened?
- Was the right code used? (One wrong code can ripple through your reporting and throw performance numbers off.)
- Were the proper next steps set up, or did the account just get left hanging?
- If a payment was made, was it scheduled correctly? Did the collector simply accept what was offered, or did they responsibly try to upgrade the plan and establish a clear path forward?
In short: it’s not enough to hear what was said—you need to confirm the paper trail matches the conversation, and that the call drives the account in the right direction.
Targeted Call Selection
Here’s one way to get calls: pulling calls at random. However, I like to start with the call report, and identify calls that might seem odd to me. I can check time of day, repetitive calls and length of calls quickly. Don’t let short or long calls dissuade you from listening. Sometimes the odd call can be eye opening. Sometimes you might also need to review a series of calls. Random has its place, but let’s be honest—it’s just one way to monitor. If you want your program to provide real insight, you have to be intentional with your call selection. And be sure to have access to the account, and the collector notes to review during the call.
Think about the calls that matter most to risk and performance:
- Settlement offers that carry financial and compliance risk.
- Small payments that might signal a stall or avoidance.
- Broken promises that expose patterns of weakness.
- Calls handled by new collectors who are still learning your accounts.
A strong strategy is to spotlight one or two focus areas each month. Mix in a few random calls for balance, but put your weight behind targeted reviews. This not only gives you sharper insights—it keeps your program fresh, because you’re always shining a light somewhere new.
Calibration Sessions: The Secret Ingredient
Now, let’s talk about the real game-changer: calibration.
If you’ve ever compared your call scores to the vendor’s, you’ve probably seen the gaps. What you consider a miss, they sometimes consider “good enough.” That disconnect is dangerous—it leads to friction, finger-pointing, and ultimately no improvement.
Calibration solves that. When you and the vendor sit down together, listen to the same calls, and walk through the scoring side by side, something important happens:
- You align on expectations.
- You turn disagreements into discussions.
- You shift the program from punitive to collaborative.
I like to notify the agency in advance of what calls we will be reviewing together on the call calibration discussion. This provides them an opportunity to review the call, and score it in their method before we discuss.
Calibration isn’t just about scoring calls—it’s about building trust. It shows the vendor you’re not looking to “catch” them, you’re looking to partner with them. And when that mindset takes root, oversight transforms from a rote compliance exercise into a meaningful, performance-driven process.
Coaching and Remediation
Listening and calibration naturally lead to the next step: coaching. A single slip might just be human error, but when you see patterns, it’s a sign of training needs.
The most effective oversight programs don’t stop at identifying the problem.
They work with the vendor on solutions—whether that’s refresher training, changes in scripting, or a shift in how performance is measured.
Oversight, when it’s done right, becomes the spark for growth.
A Long History of Monitoring Collectors
At Resource Management Services, we’ve been monitoring calls since before recordings existed—back when you had to sit beside a collector and listen live. With today’s recordings, you can do so much more with the data, but one thing hasn’t changed: preparation matters.
I’ll never forget an onsite audit where I came in a little underprepared. We had six calls on one account. I’d reviewed the first four, where the consumer repeatedly said it was the wrong number and asked to be removed. Each time, the collector promised they would. But the calls kept coming.
The agency swore their system automatically removed numbers once the right code was used, so they brought in IT to prove it. That’s when they asked me to play calls five and six—which I had never planned to play. Let’s just say the consumer had lost their patience, and the language was… memorable.
Turns out, the system never actually removed numbers when that code was entered. It was a major flaw, and to their credit, the agency fixed it quickly. The outcome was great – call monitoring resulted in an important find, but I learned my own lesson, too: always listen to all the calls before pressing play.
It’s So Much More
Call monitoring oversight is about so much more than listening. It’s about connecting what you hear with what’s documented, coded, and acted upon. It’s about being intentional in the calls you target, and turning calibration sessions into collaborative conversations instead of check-the-box exercises.
And sometimes, as my own story reminds me, it’s also about being thorough. Oversight isn’t just for finding collector mistakes—it can uncover bigger issues in systems, processes, or training. When handled the right way, those discoveries not only protect your institution but also give your vendor the chance to improve and succeed.
Done well, call monitoring moves from being a compliance requirement to becoming a powerful tool for performance, partnership, and trust. Listening is only the beginning—the real impact comes from what you do next.
So yes, it’s very important to listen—but don’t stop there.
The real power of oversight lies in what happens after you take off the headset.
Author: Judy Hammond
judy.hammond@resourcemanagement.com
Judy Hammond is founder and President of Resource Management Services, Inc. The corporation was founded in 1986 and specializes in auditing and consulting, serving the collection and recovery industry. As President of Resource Management Services, Inc., she has more than 35 years of experience with an emphasis on operational reviews for compliance and operational effectiveness of collection operations, both for creditors’ internal collection and recovery operations as well as collection agencies and attorneys. She has worked with top banks and financial institutions, utilities, credit unions and telcoms, (and their vendors) and has conducted many Best Practices projects. She is author of various industry publications: “Comprehensive Agency/Attorney Usage Study,” “Comprehensive Agency/ Attorney Usage Study II” and “Collect More From Collection Agencies”. Her work with creditors who were looking to sell debt for the first time, and subsequent Buyer/Seller research was the foundation for the second corporation, The Debt Marketplace, Inc. She worked with Dennis Hammond as co-founders of the Debt Buyers’ Association, (now RMAi), building the foundations for industry standards, as well as the original code of ethics. She developed and produced two industry conferences, Collection and Recovery Solutions and Debt Connection Symposium & Expo, from their inception in 2002 and 2006, respectively, to 2022. Prior to starting her own company, she worked with two large collection agencies.
