Author: admin

---

The digital age has created a new type of customer with new habits, so it’s never been more important to understand the complete picture when it comes to the customer journey and developing customer centric best practice.

Credit Resource Solutions have drawn upon a vast collective experience and expert network to identify the most frequently asked questions a ‘Collections Director’ will need answering when making the decision to outsource overdue accounts.

Understanding every ‘touch-point’ between an organisation and its customers helps us to understand where we can add extra value for the customer, often that extra value may be to remove obstacles that stop them from advancing on their journey (like making payments).

Customer feedback should be seen as the bricks and mortar of your customer journey foundations. It offers businesses deep understanding of changing trends, new technology and processes as well as customer expectations, which is crucial for business planning and research & design (R&D).

Download our whitepaper on leveraging customer feedback; Packed with why it’s important, what channels your team can use and examples of how we’ve actioned feedback into success

Here at coeo we’ve embraced an ‘our audience is our expertise’ mantra, developing not only state of the art customer facing tools but also bespoke internal processing systems (our Continuous Improvement Process), helping us to streamline our tactics and create lean strategies for our clients.

Annually we service over 2 million live customer accounts and monthly enjoy circa 213k inbound customer contacts. We’ll receive over £25 million in payments for 2020 which will be serviced by:

• 50,000 + monthly calls
• 130,000 + [Monthly Customer Portal Logins]
• 10,000 emails
• And more…

It’s important to note, we still embrace ALL of the traditional methods of Collections contact and receive around 100 letters a month (oh how the times have changed).

Everything we do is aimed at working towards funnelling information back into what we call our Continuous Improvement Programme (CIP), where we use both anecdotal and hard data to make better decisions and direct our research and development.

In this blog we share the 3 central reasons we believe customer feedback is crucial to success:

1. Keeps you customer focussed
2. Improves your products and services through data
3. Gets Results

Let’s take a look at the detail…

Keeping customer focused

First up we believe that ‘our audience are our experts’ as such we know that their experience with us needs to be at the heart what we do.

We can do this by creating mechanisms and channels where we can engage with our client’s customers and they feedback information and data that is good, bad or indifferent.  We believe all interactions can offer some type of lesson. The greatest by-product of this approach is the customer feels listened to.

The act of just being listened to, we’ve found, increases the customer experience and helps them feel comfortable with our processing systems. The constant cycle of customer input helps us develop new systems and tweak the old, to increase the deliverability of our services for customers. The smoother we can make that journey; we’ve found the better ROI. It becomes a ‘win-win-win’ scenario (win for the customer, win for our processes and win for our clients).

Feedback and customer focus help us to also measure our client’s customer satisfaction. This is critical for success in Collections as it helps to promote what works well, whilst at the same time identify current or potential future problems.

It goes without saying: being customer focussed should play a major role in a Collections team’s tactical and strategic development. Understanding their motivations and blockages will help you to develop the direction you’ll need to secure your returns.

[CTA: Download our whitepaper on Leveraging Customer Feedback – Pack with why its important – what channels your team can use – and examples of how we’ve actioned feedback into success]

Improves your products and services through data

The customers are the ones using your systems and ultimately where you will generate income, so why tailor it to anyone else?

As mentioned earlier, it’s essential that the customer journey has been factored into the voice of the customers using your processes and tools.

It’s important to be proactive in MI management in assessing customer feedback, whether this be daily, weekly, monthly or on an ad-hoc analysis.

Like us here at coeo you could enjoy a Collections specific in-house developed system or use third party software such as Google Analytics or other reporting platforms.

We pull together all of the data and anecdotal information and feed it into our continuous improvement program that is managed by our strategic R&D teams and product owners. Any changes are then discussed internally, planned and tested before being rolled out onto a live system.

Once a change has been made based on customer feedback, we feel it’s important to review the effectiveness of the changes based on set benchmarks or trends that are relevant to our clients’ needs.

Using our digital approach this may be the number of screen buttons pushed, length of time spent on a specific page, bounce rate or increase in logins or payments on your online portal.

Gets Results

The third and final major reason why, leveraging customer feedback in Collections is crucial is because it gains results.

When your organisation focusses on the customer and then uses the feedback to make improvements to your services, products, communication portals and channels, it will come as no surprise you’ll see better results.

Our Continuous Improvement Programme was designed to collate data and anecdotal feedback to improve the customer journey. We take away the roadblocks and blockages stopping them from finding solutions for their debt, making the process easier for them.

The processes discussed in the two reasons earlier were directly responsible for the development of our customer portal. This channel now services in excess of 130,000 inbound portal logins monthly and is directly responsible for the lower number of complaints we receive and importantly much higher collection rates for our clients.

Final Words from coeo

Our company has evolved at an astonishing pace over the past few years and driving that change has been the realisation that the best way to adapt to our clients’ needs is to listen more and talk less.

That is why we developed our in-house ‘Continuous Improvement Process’ to leverage the incredible feedback we gather and use.

To find out what different channels your team can use – and examples of how we’ve actioned feedback into direct success…

download our whitepaper on leveraging customer feedback

---

The Debt Collection Industry is often described as a ‘hostile battleground’ with the landscape constantly shifting. This means to operate a successful DCA within this environment, you need to be adaptable and appropriately equipped with a response for the most common questions and be prepared to offer quick fire solutions to solve any issues uncovered.

coeo UK have drawn upon a vast collective experience and expert network to identify the most frequently asked questions a ‘Collections Director’ will need answering when making the decision to outsource overdue accounts.

 

To sign-up to our monthly newsletter

In this blog we’ve collated the top 6 questions and aim to offer you answers covering the direct and broader subject.

The list is as follows:

1. How can I get the best bottom-line results?
2. How can I get a transparent and immediate view of your performance and how does this help drive continuous improvement?
3. Our business is unique; how can you tailor your contact strategies to match our procedures?
4. How can you offer me reassurance and evidence that compliance is embedded into the company to ensure I’m not a risk to regulators?
5. How can I make sure our vulnerable customers are looked after and managed appropriately?
6. What makes you different to my current DCA and does it work?

Let’s not hang around and dive into the detail…

“How can I get the best bottom-line results (£)?”

Outperforming competition

Let’s start with the most obvious first. Ultimately a Collections Director/Manager is asking “Why would partnering with you offer me better returns than my current partner?” or “how will your company get my company the best bang for my buck?”

To answer this question, a DCA should be committed to three core areas.

• Focus – Collections and working with debt should be the day job. It should be what your company is about. When working with debt it is important to have a clear understanding of the huge number of variables that can confront businesses trying to recover outstanding money. The issues can range from understanding the optimum time of day to make contact, the correct platform i.e. smart phone application vs email vs letter, through to how to deal with vulnerable customers.

• Experience – The poet and novelist Paulo Coelho once said, “People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves.” Great DCA’s need to have experience on their side to help them find out what works. Experience means you can save time, reduce cost and focus on success. Here at coeo we have vast collective experience from an industry leading management team through to award winning agents, we lean upon that experience to make the correct strategic decisions.
• Technology – Our experience has unveiled that it is now crucial for a DCA to use modern and relevant customer communication tools and techniques. Your customers increasingly live in a digital world that is built around their convenience. Our success has come from offering a host of customer focussed digital solutions that allows 24/7 contact in the digital arena.

[for further details on technology please see question 6 below]

That being said, we don’t expect you to just take our word for it.  We have numerous case studies and clients who can recommend and verify our approach as being effective from a revenue, cost and ‘champion challenger’ perspective.

Want to know more? Here’s our Tech & Services brochure

 

“How can I get a transparent and immediate view of your performance and how does this help drive continuous improvement?”

Transparent Reporting

Client reporting has been identified as the best way to build and strengthen the client to DCA relationship. Enjoying direct access to activities and results makes sure the client stays an integral part of the process and in control. It is important that the mechanisms in place help that process be as fluid and barrier free as possible.

• At coeo we’ve developed a client portal for ‘on-the-go’ reporting and analytics, accessible 24/7 365 days of the year. We work with our clients to develop customisable dashboards so our clients can see the information important to them in an easily consumable format. We’ve recently transformed this into an app that provides personalised notifications to keep you fully in the loop. 

• Customisable transaction reporting will act as handshakes to your systems. The frequency and content of these can be made bespoke to your requirements allowing for an auditable and frictionless view of all account level activity. 

• We also encourage regular performance reviews to take place between dedicated account managers and our client. The information gathered and the feedback loop inevitably helps towards developing future strategic decisions and direction as the process becomes more efficient.  
• Finally, we hold daily meetings involving Director level expertise on performance and targets to identify opportunities and areas for strategic improvement and help the client feedback process.

“Our business is unique; how can you tailor your contact strategies to match our procedures?”

Tailored Strategies

A tailored strategy is crucial when communicating with customers as it allows your business to continue to stay connected with your customers in a positive way through the DCA. Bespoke communication helps customers feel comfortable due to the familiar style. 

When developing bespoke strategies, a DCA must consider your business aspects like your values and priorities, what tone and branding requirements are needed i.e. not ‘aggressive’ collections.

Things also to consider are, can your DCA match your processes in terms of length and escalation? Also, will they match your segmentation requirements i.e. risk vs value vs product etc? All touch points must be considered when developing a tailored plan.

As well as everything already discussed here at coeo UK we also offer a White Label Service where all communications go out in your company name, with your branding and are dealt with by CSA accredited agents answering contact as you. This service helps to make it seamless and less stressful for your customers.

To sign-up to our monthly newsletter

 

“How can you offer me reassurance and evidence that compliance is embedded into the company to ensure I’m not a risk to regulators?”

Compliance is Key

Put simply, compliance makes sure we follow ethical practices, laws, standards and regulations in the workplace, something we embrace. Compliance also helps lay out expectations for staff behaviour helping our team members stay focused on their goals leading to a smoother running business.

We understand the benefits of upholding a positive image is a must in this day and age.

At coeo we take compliance seriously, we’re FCA authorised, have ISO 9001 & 27001 certification, undertake over 300 business process audits a year and deploy practical compliance versus ‘box ticking’. This is all supported by libraries of accessible policies and procedures and a team of experts to monitor adherence. We also implement technology enabled auditing of our agents and the management of issues, complaints and risk logs.  

The sum of our processes culminated in a win at 2019’s CCS awards for as an industry leader for Best Conduct & Culture.

“How can I make sure our vulnerable customers are looked after and managed appropriately?”

Customer Care

Customer care will always play a major role in our business. It’s a leading driver for customer loyalty, is often used as a differentiator when welcoming new customers and ultimately leads to increased revenue for our clients.

But not all things are equal. Unique to the collections industry we will often deal with vulnerable customers meaning a one size fits all approach just doesn’t work.

At coeo UK we separate vulnerable customers when identified and have a dedicated trained service team for this group to ensure they receive the appropriate care when dealing with their accounts.

We have also worked hard to build relationships with key Debt Management Agencies (DMA’s) to ensure suitable signposting and swift file exchange. The added impetus on ensuring that these accounts are up to date has resulted in coeo UK building a bespoke portal for efficient file transfers – making us a market leader in this area.

“What makes you different to my current DCA and does it work?”

Embracing Technology – A New Breed of DCA

The great thing about coeo is, like other DCA’s, we’ve built strong foundations on solid traditional collections models and techniques such as automated calls and letters. That being said, our ‘secret sauce’ has to be the way we’ve moved with the times, markets and embraced technology. Our approach of a ‘tradition and technology fusion’ gives us the ability to provide our clients with a full 360-degree approach to collections.

We’ve looked closely and moved with customer communication changes.

The overarching change that we’ve identified is that customers want to deal with their accounts at a time that’s convenient to them, have the ability to self-service and manage their debt privately. Interestingly, whether through embarrassment, anxiety or other, they may not always want to talk to agent on the phone. So why would they have to?

We aim to drive inbound contact by using a range of methods versus the more traditional approach of trying to ‘catch’ people when they are available through intrusive contact (dial after dial after dial…). We then ensure that we have the right response tools in place so that customers can action their accounts at their convenience rather than ours. 

That being said – for those customers that prefer to discuss their accounts over the phone we have an expert contact centre team of agents. Our agents are CAI accredited and with the ‘not one size fits all’ mindset we split our agents into areas of expertise, so they are trained at handing different debt types i.e. commercial vs industry vs early or late arrears.

 

Want to know more? Here’s our Tech & Services brochure

Final words

coeo prides itself on its ability to find solutions for all client requests. In this blog we share insight to some of the best strategic tools we are currently using, giving our clients an edge on other DCA’s, but these are just the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, we have many more techniques and a development plan that stretches well into the end of next year! 

Our bespoke software and inhouse designed programming has helped us quickly become one of the top ten DCA’s in the nation and we’re not stopping there.

If you’re interested in having a chat about our services just

---

Welcome to the launch of coeo’s first-ever podcast. As a business that sees the benefit of sharing its knowledge and findings with our industry, we felt that it was appropriate to add another great channel to our communications output, the Podcast!

https://soundcloud.com/credit-resource-solutions/sets/collections-in-the-digital-age

At top level we enjoy a collective 150 years of traditional industry experience which we couple with an ever-evolving culture of embracing new technologies and processes. At our recent event ‘Collections in the Digital Age’ we covered a huge range of subjects discussing everything from industry trends, what tools customers and clients were using and preferring to how technology is impacting the collections.

One of our features of the day was the open panel discussion we had with a first-class line-up of experts, we labelled ‘The Big Questions’ in the collections industry and as such we felt this was the best place to start our podcast by bringing you those questions and the panels direct responses.

Interested in our services? to book a digital, self-isolation friendly, meeting

Click me

Before we get into it, the panel consisted of:

• Gary Grey (GG) Head of Collections at Spark Energy
• Caroline Burston (CB) Operations Director at coeo
• Tony Gunderson (TG) 30 years + experience in financial services
• Lisa Beeching (LB) Head of Supplier Management and Quality Assurance at 1st Central

And the day’s host…

• James Squires (JS) Business Development Director at coeo

Today’s podcast discussed the first question tackled on the afternoon ‘Will AI take over collections completely?’

JS: “Let’s start with the introductions…”

GG: “My name’s Gary Grey I work for Spark Energy previously at First Utility also at EON and British Gas. I’ve also worked within the financial services industry for around about 5 years, always in collections primarily around strategy, insight and change. So that’s me.”

CB: “I’m Caroline Burston, I’m the Operations Director at coeo. So I look after the collections, the back office and the finance teams and i also dabble in managing our sister company AJJB Law.”

TG: “Hi, good afternoon, Tony Gunderson. I’ve worked in financial services for about 30 years now from the prime sector through to the high cost short-term sector and everything in-between. So that’s me”

LB: “I’m Lisa Beeching I’ve worked in financial services for about 20 years, specialising in the insurance industry as part of that bringing finance in-house for our company and then using outsource and white-label as part of that journey.”

JS: “Thank you for that guys. So, the format we’re going to take for this session is: we’ve prepared a number of pre-agreed questions, as we’re calling them ‘The Big Questions’ for the collections industry. But just to keep these guys on their toes, what I hope that we could do is still continue to use Slido (Q&A audience interaction platform) and what I’ll do is I’ll keep a track of the time and I’ll promise you at least 10 minutes at the end where you can ask difficult questions directly to the panel. So hopefully we’ll get some great ones from you like we did with Tom this morning. So, the first question it’s a real difficult one and I’m going to pick Tony if you don’t mind answering this one it’s a technology question and it’s a question that was posed around the office the other day.”

JS: “Will AI take over collections completely?”

TG: “Whether it will take over completely? it certainly presents a number of different opportunities. Firstly, I suppose if you’re in a business that’s looking to grow then you’ve got the opportunity to grow far more quickly without the costly headcount. It can certainly improve efficiency, so if you’ve got that combination of less headcount more efficiency, opportunity to grow revenue without all the costs attached then there’s got to be benefits there. But I suppose if you break it down into two things probably and that is your AI capable of being rational in terms of its understanding and approach to things but also can it have that human side? So the humanity that’s required when people are looking for guidance help or just information. I suppose in summary it’s at this stage more of an opportunity than being able to definitely say it’s going to take over I think it’s unlikely to totally take over but it’s certainly going to have a big say in what happens going forward.”

JS: “Thank you Tony, Gary you look like you wanted to add to that?” 

GG: “One of the things I notice every time I visit coeo is that I know that their client base is increasing but every time I go up there, they’ve still got the same number of staff working on the phones. So, you think to yourself you guys have really harnessed the ability to use AI. I suppose the only question mark I would have is, the whole vulnerability element you know and being able to understand vulnerability. Part of our collections process means that we go out to customers property and field reps will eyeball a property to understand if there’s any signs of vulnerability. When I think of that sort of example, I think to myself well how could you get something that was automated effectively to replicate the same thing. I think there are pockets of areas of difficulty.”

JS: “Caroline?”

CB: “I agree with Gary. There will always be the element of the human touch required especially around vulnerable customers and financial hardships and to establish whether its long-term or short-term. Whether in our case the account is to return to the client or if it’s just a short term and needs breathing space. There’s still a human touch that will always be required.”

JS: “I think that’s been a consistent theme across today actually hasn’t it. that absolutely no it probably won’t, it can aid and speed things up but it won’t replace the human altogether.”

Want to know more? Here’s our Tech & Services brochure

Download Here

---

Understanding whether or not your processes for collections are being maximised can sometimes feel like a minefield. With customer technology changing at the speed of light, so too are customer motivations, decision making processes, expectations and payment habits.

Gone are the days of traditional collections, we now have multiple channels to communicate with and receive payments on (both real-world and digitally), and it’s up to collections teams to constantly measure whether or not their systems are up to date and even relevant to the market.

Click here for your copy of the Collections Timelines: The 6 Key Phases Whitepaper

We understand the issues these constantly changing goal posts can raise for collections teams, so we reviewed over a thousand of our clients (and over 2 million live accounts), diving headfirst into the data to develop a common timeline from across multiple industry sectors for you to compare your own against.

Our findings suggest collections management is faced with several big considerations, from how to communicate, what channel, the tone of voice through to whether or not they want the cost of chasing debt themselves (part or all) or outsourcing it to a specialist debt recovery agency/s (DCA) like ourselves.

Often that decision comes down to the fixed cost of expanding a finance department’s collections team, leading to extra costs such as wages, software and programming as well as sourcing talent, expertise, management and more.

For most the realisation hits that it just makes better financial sense to outsource to a specialist, who is already set-up to execute on your brand’s behalf and boost your collections returns.

Over the course of the next 6 weeks we’ll be breaking down our Collections Timelines: The 6 Key Phases Whitepaper into the six major phases of the collections process and dedicating a blog post to each of the following phases:

1. Setting up for Success
2. Pre-Due
3. Due Date
4. Early Collections
5. Late Collections
6. Late Late Collections

Can’t wait? For the full Collections Timelines: The 6 Key Phases Whitepaper

Download Here

We’ll be sharing what activities are undertaken, when they are executed and what’s involved (averages are taken from across 5 major industry sectors).

With DCAs playing an integral role in the success of a collections programme, in our first post we start with phase 1 and explaining what to look for from a DCA when Setting up for Success.

Setting up for Success

Can you truly say your collections team is prepared for all eventualities?

Even if you have an outstanding collections team internally there may come a time where you need to outsource your work due to exceptional circumstances, such as the volume becomes too much for your team, the value of the debt is too little or big and/or needs specialist support or the risk involved leaves you unsure of the returns.

So, it’s important to identify a talented DCA that you can look to build a strong long-term relationship with that can quickly ‘turn on the tap’ when it’s needed most.

DCA’s come in many shapes and sizes but we believe there are 6 critical questions they must answer for you to get the best return on your investment. You can use these questions to decide if they are the right fit for your organisation and your customers:

1. How can they get you the best bottom-line results and outperform the competition?
2. Can they offer transparent reporting and 24/7 access to the information?
3. Can they tailor their services to your business needs?
4. Can they prove they are compliant?
5. Customer care is king! Do they have procedures in place to support vulnerable customers?
6. Are they flexible enough to move with the times and technology?

In our experience these six questions are the main point of focus from the thousands of clients we’ve had over the years and you’ll want to be satisfied how your DCA answers these questions fits with your business direction and your brand values.

Of course, in any partnership it will always be about the relationships with the people involved but using these six questions and their answers will help you build these crucial partnerships on strong foundations.

Final words from coeo

Thank you for taking the time to read through this post. Stay tuned next week as we launch into the second phase of the collections process: the ‘Pre-Due’ phase. We’ll see you next week!

Can’t wait for next week’s blogpost? For the full whitepaper

Download Here

---

Welcome to our brand-new coeo blog!

We‘ve been working diligently over the past few months to put together a resource to help our digital visitors benefit from the collective industry experience and expertise we enjoy here at coeo.

We’re keeping it simple; our blog will look to achieve three basic goals:

To inform

Within the coeo family we have over 150 years collective industry knowledge and our business ethos: ‘to treat people correctly’ means we are encouraged to share this knowledge with you; our digital community.

We will be contributing to the wider conversation by creating content covering an extensive range of subjects concerning the collections industry.

We’ll offer tips, insight and answers to many of the questions that continuously create barriers to success for collections departments throughout the nation.

To engage

It’s not just about sharing our knowledge, it’s also about what’s going on in the wider ‘collections’ community. So, we’ll look to share and make comment on the latest comings and goings in the industry including: what’s new, what’s coming up and of course what’s hot right now.

We’ll also undertake primary and secondary research and use the blog to disseminate our findings, helping us to engage directly with you, our audience, by creating content you’ve asked for.

This content will range from researching the ever-evolving needs and motivations of debt customers, to the latest collections technology on the market and everything else in between.

To celebrate

At coeo we know our people are our biggest asset and as such we’ll also be highlighting their successes via this platform.

Whether a member of staff has been awarded an internal promotion or award, or if they have been identified for an external achievement, the coeo blog will give us a great ‘shareable’ digital platform to celebrate all our employee’s triumphs. Because our people are our business.

Final words

Like the sound of our latest digital addition?

To sign-up to our monthly newsletter

Click Here

---

There are many potential reasons you would consider partnering with a Debt Collection Agency (DCA) but have you thought about business fit?

DCA’s were not all created equal so often it can be a minefield to know who will compliment you best. Key questions will need to be answered and alongside experience, focus and scope of ability, which are 3 of the crucial competencies you should look for when assessing the right fit for your collections team, you should also consider the DCA’s ability to develop strategies that compliment your goals.

You’ll have two options. Partnering with an off-the-shelf service provider that has little flex in it’s processes due to out of date methodology or a company focused on creating bespoke services with the flexibility to meet all of your requirements (be it based on procedure length, content, tone, IT integration, ancillary services or litigation requirements).

Which one sounds more attractive to you?

Our extensive experience in the debt collection industry, of customer expectations and sector regulations have meant that a personalised strategy is the only solution for our clients. As well as offering strong customer engagement, bespoke strategies also allow business processes to interact more seemlessly. 

Want to know more? Here’s our Tech & Services brochure

In this blog we’ve pooled together the top 5 reasons partnering with a DCA that offers tailored strategies is a necessity:

1. You’re unique
2. A single voice is required
3. Control is key
4. It’s more customer friendly
5. Grow without the growing pains

 The author and radio presenter, Charles R Swindoll once said: “The difference between something good and something great is attention to detail”, so let’s get into the detail.

You’re unique

You know how unique your business is. You’ll have a certain number of expectations of how you run your business and how you need information to be presented. Your customers will also be unique therefore your tone, branding and route to market will need to be mirrored at the ‘back end’. 

The prepared DCA appreciates new approaches and can offer solutions to accommodate challenging business systems. They have an open-minded approach with a goal to create new processes that help to create synergy.

Your DCA of choice will need to have the capacity to first listen, then understand your processes and dovetail their services to support your unique needs. Bespoke strategies are what we do, for example, no one client has the same procedure and content as another. What works for one might not work for all.

 

Personalised and single voice

Many companies will spend a good deal of money developing brand values, colours and tone of communication so when deciding on the correct DCA to partner with you want to know that there is going to be a continuation of these same attributes.for your customers.

Familiarity builds confidence for customers, allowing them to feel like their needs are being met. Here at coeo we founded our ‘White Label’ product directly in response to our partners needing a service that gave their customers the ‘single voice’ of their services.

We become an extension of your team – which includes an adherence to your polices, procedures and processes. 

 

Control

Procedure control is an important function because it helps keep everything on track and running smoothly. MI also helps to identify performance and/or recognise potential anomalies that may happen during the delivery of the service.

A bespoke service will offer a greater level of control than an ‘off the shelf’ package due to its ability to perform tasks as directed and expected with complimentary reporting.

This control will enable you to be confident that each function is executed according to your expectations and standards

Read enough and want to talk to a coeo team member about our services? To book your 10 minute chat

Customer friendly

As the saying goes ‘the customer is king’ and they’re the foundation of any business’ success. Customers need to be considered at every juncture of their lifecycle and the recoveries stage shouldn’t be an afterthought. 

Tailored processes that align to your own systems will help the continuation of your Customer journey. They allow for familiarity from a customer standpoint despite the service being executed by a third party.

In addition, including rehabilitation strategies (which doesn’t always go hand-in-hand with a ‘traditional’ DCA approach) is crucial for success – and we recognise this.

Allows for growth 

When you partner with a DCA offering tailored strategies you create an extension to your own collections department, without taking on the cost of extending your own team or investing in further overheads.

Using the resources of the third-party organisation can help you grow as you access more people, harder to reach customers as well as utilise the DCA expertise and resources like manpower, knowhow and technology.

Ultimately it leads towards strong growth and gives the collections team the ability to collect more, resulting in stronger bottom line returns.

Final words

coeo is proud to celebrate, our ability to create bespoke strategies that solve even the most challenging obstacles for our partners.

From analytical feedback and real-time data, through to system compatibility and extended collections resource like manpower, sophisticated processes and the latest multi-platform payment channels (including both online and offline processes), coeo leaves no stone unturned.

To find out more about our services check them out on our home page or READ IN YOUR OWN TIME and download Our Technology and Service Brochure Here

---

The customer experience has never been more important and in our increasingly digital world understanding the digital customer journey is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but a ‘must-have’.

Digital and social media have meant word of mouth marketing has taken on a completely new dimension forcing all business sectors to revaluate their approach to customer services and experience, the collections industry is no different.

It is suggested that acquiring a new customer is 5 times more expensive than retaining one, meaning it has never been more important to make sure the customer experience doesn’t stop at the point of sale. It is also true to say that the majority of our clients don’t see debtors as ex-customers but as prospective future customers once again.

Therefore, It is important that collections processes are as engaging, fair and positive as possible.

To sign-up to our monthly newsletter

To execute a digital age experience, you need to start first with understanding and mapping the digital customer journey. In this blog, we’ve listed 5 incredible reasons how a digital approach can benefit all stakeholders:

1. Greater customer satisfaction
2. Increase employee satisfaction
3. Identify vulnerable customers
4. Reduce outstanding days
5. Grow your business

 Let’s get into the detail…

Greater customer satisfaction

We know customer experience is one of the top drivers of business strategy. Gone are the days where customers are confined by their geography or network. In our fully connected society, communication travels at the push of a button to potentially millions of people and ‘customers’ have an unprecedented number of services and products to choose from globally.

In the ‘Netflix on-demand’ world we now live in, a good experience now means customers want to communicate on their terms at a time convenient to them. Understanding this means the customer journey in debt collections needs to adapt to this world.

By mapping the customer journey you’ll identify key opportunities to fit into their world at the right time and with the right platforms, making them more comfortable to engage with your services. This is crucial for brand awareness, building customer loyalty, retention and rehabilitation. Ultimately it all leads toward improving your return on investment and saving costs.

Increase employee satisfaction

Something to consider is the impact understanding the digital customer journey will have on the development of your internal processes and your team members.

Understanding the customer journey will help you identify opportunities and weaknesses in your current workflows allowing your company to make improvements and add new technologies to increase productivity and therefore satisfaction for your team.

Things as simple as having an easily accessible and updated CRM system is a small technology addition helping staff get a full picture of what type of customer they’ll be engaging with, so they can present a full solution package for them or align technology to suit the customer’s preferences.

It can also make sure vulnerable customers are placed with the correct support team allowing all stakeholders to achieve desirable results.

Want to know more? Here’s our Tech & Services brochure

Click Here

Identify vulnerable customers

The introduction of new technologies to the customer journey can allow artificial intelligence to pick up on keywords and identify potentially vulnerable customers.

AI can be used to scan email, SMS, live chat, Bots and more to recognise words and terms like ‘stressed’ and ‘feeling low’ flagging customers that need specialised support and helping those needing to be placed with skilled collections teams and agents.

Reducing outstanding days

Customers have different communication preferences; whether it’s they’re too busy or possibly embarrassed to speak to an agent using traditional techniques. Offering platforms like SMS payments and self-managed digital portals can help reduce outstanding days as you bring them solutions better associated to their preferences.

Communications can also be tailored to an individual’s needs. For example, information on paydays could be used to target campaigns on those days for immediate payment, or, if further away to secure an agreement suitable for both parties.  

Grow your business

Although it’s been mentioned earlier it’s important to reinforce how mapping the digital journey of your customers can help to not only identify gaps and opportunities but as we become a customer experience-driven industry understanding every single one of these touch points will allow us to rip up the script and break new ground.

The goal is to achieve more, with better focus, utilising fewer resources.

Final words from coeo

As an organisation that has championed the integration of technology into everything we do, we have understood the key to our growth has come from focussing our service wheel 360 degrees around our clients’ customers.

We have dug deep into our data to understand the full ‘cradle to the grave’ journey of the customer. We’ve explored industry trends to keep pace with change, developed industry-leading systems and software to interact with customers at every touchpoint.

To find out more about our use of technology and a wide range of services you can download our brochure here and read it at your leisure.

---

As part of our 6 Questions a DCA Must Answer series, we’re going to focus on the importance of ‘DCA – Client’ reporting in this blog.

We know real-time data feedback is crucial in today’s business world because it helps keep everyone in the loop, in control and (when done correctly) can save both time and money.

When developing a feedback system, DCA Managers will expect transparent and direct access to key information and they’ll have a list of expectations of how it should be delivered to them, so it’s crucial the DCA can develop bespoke solutions and utilise systems that make the process fluid and obstacle free.

Want to know more? Here’s our Tech & Services brochure

Download Here

Some will say it always starts with the ‘Why?’
Why do DCA managers need reports?

Aside from the obvious reason – to keep systems up to date – we’ve identified the 5 most important reasons our clients NEED to have a level of reporting that goes above and beyond the transactional reports that ‘every’ DCA offers: 

1. It offers control
2. It helps build trust
3. It reinforces accountability
4. It allows traceability 
5. It’s auditable

Walt Disney famously said, “There is no magic in magic, it’s all in the details”  So let’s make like Disney and delve into the detail.

Building trust

Trust is a currency built up over time. When handing a service to a DCA you’ll agree a set of targets before you engage in the activities. When the targets are achieved seamlessly and without obstruction trust is achieved. Reports help in the process of building trust as it allows the client to see the moving parts confirming everything is running smoothly and as agreed.

Accountability

When targets are agreed it puts the onus on the service provider (DCA) to complete the set tasks approved and the fixed goals agreed. By accepting accountability, it offers the client an automatic level of confidence that the collections agency will deliver on the agreement.

It allows traceability

When a DCA implements a fully automated traceable system it helps them to know who is and what is involved at every ‘touch point’ of the service increasing the visibility of those responsible.

This has two key benefits

1. Reducing risk and allowing for improvements to made to the entire system, because barriers to success will be identified and dealt with quickly.
2. Creating an environment fit for today’s regulatory and compliance standards.

It is also important that if there’s any manual processing involved, mechanisms are set up in place to log everything including those responsible for actioning the procedures. The logs should then be fed into the reporting system so once again the client has a full picture of the ongoing procedures and service.

It’s auditable

Final thoughts from coeo

Here at coeo we pride ourselves on our reporting software, programmes and strategies. Through our collective experience we’ve identified the importance of how insightful and accurate reporting helps build the strong relationships we currently enjoy with our partners. 

From our MI Site to our bespoke auditing and task management systems – our award-winning portals are celebrated by both our clients and their customers for their ease of use and accessibility. It’s something we’re extremely proud of and something that positions us as ‘A New Breed of DCA’.

---

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a person healthy, wealthy, and wise.” This famous quote from American Statesman and Scientist, Benjamin Franklin is said to emphasise that someone who gets enough sleep and starts work early in the day will have a successful day.

The quote is beautiful in its simplicity but when it comes to ‘Early Collections’ there’s quite a few more moving parts we need to consider than just getting in early and making the first contact to see success. 

Following a review of 1000s of clients and over 2 million live customer accounts we’ve used the feedback to identify the 6 crucial stages of the collections process: 

1. Setting Up for Success
2. Pre-Due Collections
3. Due Date
4. Early Collections
5. Late Collections
6. Late Late Collections

Pooling anecdotal and data-driven findings we’ve developed a Collections cross-industry common timeline and themes series of blog posts and in this, the 4th post, we tackle head-on the who, the why, the when and the how of Early Collections.

Short on time and want to read all 6 phases at your convenience? To download the Collections Timelines Whitepaper

Click Here

Early Collections

The Early Collections stage is the most important for maintaining a relationship with a Customer. At this point, missed payments could be accidental (new payment details, expired cards, forgetfulness, timing), due to short term financial issues or changes in circumstances. 

The sooner the engagement occurs between the customer and the creditor the better the outcome is for both parties.

We see that processes at this stage run for an average of either 30 or 60 days (up to 2 or 3 missed payments). 

From our experience, any account that is in an internal procedure for longer than this (say, throughout 3-6 missed payment) suffers because of the clear impetus on rehabilitating the newer defaults. We often find that moving these to a third party for a stepped approach will generate a greater return versus leaving the accounts in process. 

From a commercial perspective, feedback suggests that Managers and Directors need to consider their FIXED COST of internal teams, expertise and systems management against outsourcing. Fixed costs are replaced with variable costs based on success with the added benefit of the expertise, experience and collections specific technology available for your customers without the complications or R&D costs.

From a branding standpoint, white-label strategy design is an immersive and complete replication of the partner’s brand look, tone and values to allow for a seamless customer journey.  

Want to know more about coeo? Here’s our Tech & Services brochure

coeo in Action

At coeo our White Label service offers an attractive alternative to what can be a very costly internal early collections process. We have a strong record of using our bespoke collections technology to create fully branded communications strategies which, when issued to customers via Email, SMS, letter and voice channels, ensure that the seamless journey is maintained throughout. 

Typically, we use our clients’ own CRM systems, so transaction and engagement information is instantly recorded on customer accounts at the source. This also enables us to actively rehabilitate ongoing Direct Debits to cover future consumption or scheduled payments whilst addressing the arrears balance on the account that has kicked off the collections cycle in the first place. 

Introducing the potential escalation to ‘Late Collections’ and a Debt Collection Agency towards the end of this strategy effectively warns the customer of the potential consequences of non-payment and generates a good response from those who haven’t reacted to earlier communications.

Final words from coeo

We hoped you’ve enjoyed this post. If you’d like to read through all of the 6 phases of the collections process in your own time then you can download the COLLECTIONS TIMELINES White Paper here or if you’d like to find out more about our technology and services you can download our brochure here.

---

It’s always sad to say goodbye, but as we come to the last post in our Collections Common Timelines series, we hope you’ve enjoyed the journey.

Our mission was to share with interested parties the data and anecdotal evidence we’ve been presented with concerning the 6 stages of the collections process:

1. Setting Up for Success
2. Pre-Due Collections
3. Due Date
4. Early Collections
5. Late Collections  
6. Late Late Collections

We dug deep into feedback from 1000’s of clients and over 2 million live accounts to not only estimate the average timelines involved but also best practice in how to maximise your ROI.

As an added benefit we’re also sharing with you how we’ve practically applied these learnings in the real live collections process (see below).

Short on time and want to read all 6 phases at your convenience? To download the Collections Timelines Whitepaper

View post on imgur.com

At 120 days plus we are in the final stage of the collections process and there are 4 main options available:

Legal

Through our legal service AJJB, we understand that once all avenues have been exhausted the only way to secure a client’s position is to issue proceedings through the court in a cost-effective way.

We utilise scorecards alongside a bespoke internal system and Credit Reference Agency data to measure an account’s suitability score. Those that fit the criteria then go through a hybrid collections strategy which includes stronger communication via our various contact channels and a Letter Before Claim from our solicitors.

Although we are into the final process of debt recovery our procedural content is still designed to rehabilitate our client’s customers so they can avoid the need for legal action in the form of a County Court Claim. The customers are notified during of every step of the process and educated about the consequences of non-payment.

To find out more about AJJB, Click Here

There are two big myths about legal action:

1. That it can damage an organisation’s brand: in our experience customers are completely aware of the situation they find themselves in and understand it is their responsibility to find a solution; which we offer. As long as the correct and compliant procedures have been followed throughout the process, we’ve found very little issues with this course of action.
2. The second myth is that legal costs too much money with little or no net return. Our bespoke internal system aligned with the Credit Reference Agency data allows us to utilise a very successful scorecard system. Once the numbers have been ‘crunched’ we can accurately inform our clients of their expected outcomes and ROI. We also have a range of no-win no-fee charging models meaning clients are guaranteed a positive net result.

2nd DCA placement

The second option available is to try a further DCA placement. As discussed earlier not all DCA’s are the same. Some focus on specific areas and others have more or less ‘tools’ at their disposal than others.

Although coeo UK began life using traditional collections methods, over a decade ago we identified the movement towards new technology and have embraced a digital collections approach as one of our USPs. As a result we often find we’re approached for both first and second placement because of our vast array of traditional and new tech collections tools.

Debt sale

Another option is Debt Sale, where company A will offload a debt book or portfolio to company B with company B securing the right to collect the money and become the new creditor.

Write Off

The final option is to write the account off and close it down as a liability.

It’s important to note that these options will not happen as a single process activity, the options will work in combination with each other and often they are interchangeable and stackable.

Final words from coeo

Thank you for taking the time to read through this cross-industry average debt collection timeline blog post.

If you’re interested in how your industry’s collections timelines match up against the average, or against other industries feel free to download our latest Collections: Timelines Whitepaper here.