Are you convinced you’re doing all you can to maximise your returns in Collections?
Some say the ‘Time Makes the Wine’ but when does the right time become too early or too late? When it comes to something as simple as the Due Date, is this a single day or is it actually a period? And what is the correct approach to make? And how assertive should you be?
The constantly shifting customer trends are often difficult to navigate so to make things easier for your team we’ve pulled together data from thousands of our clients (and over two million live customer accounts) to bring you this ‘Collections Common Timelines’ blog series, so you can measure your how your timelines stack up against the 6 steps in collections:
Short on time and want to read all 6 phases at your convenience? To download the Collections Timelines Whitepaper
Click Here
The Covid19 pandemic and changing technology have been at the forefront of driving trends recently and we know just how difficult it is to stay up on top of the data whilst at the same time updating the multiple systems and processes used in Collections.
We all know it’s never been more important to make sure what you’re delivering is not only relevant but also appropriate. So to lend a helping hand we’ve pooled our data into a single space so you can benchmark your activities against the larger industry.
In this week’s post, we discuss our third step of the Collections Timelines Process: Due Date. We explain the average length of time, the approach and tone collections teams should use and also give a sample of the actions we would take during this phase. Enjoy!
Due Date
Multiple payment runs (such as re-presenting direct debits) can elongate the ‘due date’ from day 0 to day 3.
Reactive communications must be sent out at this stage to keep the Customer informed of the success (or not) of any payment attempt. The quicker you can let a customer know of a failed payment, the quicker the account can be rehabilitated.
An API integration is integral for strategies at this stage – a quick notification from your system can trigger immediate communications to customers based on success.
Want to know more about CRS? Here’s our Tech & Services brochure
CRS in Action
At CRS we use a combination of contact channels to alert a customer as soon as their instalment has failed on a Continuous Payment Authority (CPA) payment arrangement.
An SMS message prompts them to log back into their online account and make the payment manually if, for example, their card details have changed since setting the arrangement with us. Letting them know immediately is vital as typically these arrangements are set up on paydays.
We are also able to generate unique document links to send via SMS which can present an invoice to a customer as soon as it becomes due as part of our White Label service. This ensures that the invoice is received on the due date and customers are encouraged to make a payment without having to wait for a physical copy to arrive in the post.
This approach increases the speed of presentation which allows us to issue a greater volume of follow up contacts should payment not be received before the collections process intensifies to Early Collections.
Tomorrow (Wednesday the 4th of March) sees our inaugural industry conference ‘Collections in the Digital Age’, and we’ve put together an incredible team of guest speakers and industry experts to deliver what will be an educational, fun and informative day.
We’re looking to break the mould of traditional ‘collections industry’ events by directing the day away from what had become standard subjects (Brexit, GDPR, wider economic issues) to tackling contemporary topics challenging the industry in the 21st century.
Under the spotlight will be key topics such as ‘Understanding the digital customer journey’ and ‘Utilising technology’ to enhance customer experience and understand which tools are working.
Below we’ve listed the areas covered at the event and short bios on the experts delivering each topic:
Technology in Collections.
The customer journey has been at the forefront of most businesses over the past decade. In this session, we’re providing a view of debt collection through the ages and take a look at what can be done to support customers in the digital era. We won’t forget the creditors either: what do you expect and how can your needs be satisfied through advancements in tech?
Delivering this discussion:
James Squires
James Squires, Yorkshire born and bred, embodies the attitudes of CRS and our core values as a business. James joined CRS 6 months ago as Business Development Director from the Data and Technology industry where he was previously a Commercial Director and was at the forefront in leading technological developments enabling his client’s business to deliver more efficient digital customer journeys.
Leaving his flat cap at home, he promises to extort the virtues of his beloved Yorkshire so be ready for plenty of regionally based references.
Tom Hill
Tom, our current Senior Collections Manager, has been with CRS for nearly 10 years and has held several different roles within the business. Starting his CRS journey as a Collections Agent he has then progressed to positions in our Data Analytics, Client Relationship and Solutions Delivery departments before moving back into the world of operations. His in-depth knowledge of our collections processes and how our technology has developed over the years to meet client and customer needs helps him to maximise contact centre productivity and performance against both internal and client KPI’s.
Want to know more about our Tech & Services here’s our brochure:
Download Here
The Big Questions: The Panel.
An interactive session with a wide-ranging panel of experts answering key questions on their processes. Starting with a number of practical topics for discussion and then opening up the floor to allow delegates to seek answers to your big questions!
Our star line up of panellists are:
Lisa Beeching
Lisa has worked in insurance for over 20 years spending her first 10 years at Hastings Direct, working her way up through various operational roles to Head of Operations.
In 2011 Lisa took a sidestep for a few years, becoming Finance Operations Manager supporting the launch of 1st Central Finance, a credit platform for monthly payers. In 2012 Lisa brought the entire instalment operation in house from modelling the default cycles to system behaviours to become BACs certified.
Lisa is currently Head of Supplier Management and Quality assurance at First Central Insurance and Technology managing key supplier relationships across 45 suppliers spanning all operational areas from sales through to claims.
Tony Gundersen
Tony has worked in the Financial Services Sector for the past 30 years at Nat West, Provident Financial Group and latterly as Director/Country Manager for Ferratum Group’s UK operation.
He has held a range of senior positions in Business & Commercial Development, Client Relationships, Marketing and Operations.
Tony believes success is built around good communication and setting attainable (but not easy to achieve) goals.
He has built effective teams capable of delivering excellent results and is passionate about doing things the right way, (first time) creating the environment that will lend itself to the best possible outcome being achieved.
Gary Grey
Gary has been Head of Collections at Spark Energy for the previous two and a half years and a key client of CRS. Gary has held several Senior Strategy positions throughout the Utility and Financial sectors.
With senior management background, Gary’s experience includes Senior Strategy Consultant in different Utility Businesses in the UK including E.On, First and now Spark. Further to this, Gary spent over 5 years at Dollar Financial Group enhancing and honing his strategic skills.
We’re extremely pleased to have Gary join us on the panel today bringing his wealth of cross-industry knowledge to the discussion.
Caroline Burston
Caroline is currently Managing Director of AJJB law heading up the new legal debt litigation specialist business. Into her new role, she brings a wealth of collection experience where she still currently holds her role of Operations Director at CRS, a role which she has held for the past 9 years.
Caroline has worked in the Debt Collection industry since 1993 and gained extensive experience at several collection agencies and solicitors’ practices. Caroline’s is a well-known industry figure and brings extensive compliance experience and knowledge to CRS & is also a member of the prestigious Credit 500.
Industry benchmarking.
Have you ever wondered about the industry norms when it comes to debt collection? Are your processes in line with other companies within your sector and how do they compare versus the market as a whole? We’ll be providing an overview of the ‘typical’ collections & recoveries strategy, how they differ per industry and where the key touchpoints are.
Delivering this presentation:
Tim Anson
Tim joined CRS 6 months ago as Strategy Director. He has 25 years of experience in Financial Services, most recently as Commercial Director at Provident Financial Group where he worked for the 11 years. Alongside this, Tim was also a Board Member at the CFA. Tim has worked for many other FS Businesses including 11 years at HBOS plc where he held several roles including Head Of Halifax Mortgages.
Customer feedback and insight.
We take a look at what customers are demanding from a modern-day business. What are their needs and how fast are they changing? A further analysis into the trends that we’re seeing on the front line of debt collection and how we can use this as a basis to improve strategies.
Presenting these findings is:
Paul Rogan
Paul is an experienced Account Director with a 17-year history of working in the regulated financial services industry.
Paul’s background within the industry has had much focus on lending and collections across both the high-cost short term credit and mainstream sectors and he has built up experience of marketing, sourcing and developing business to business relationships, compliance functions and streamlining end to end customer journeys through recognition that consumer behaviour has become more digital over the last decade.
Leadership in the 21st century
The day will conclude with a light-hearted chat on leadership from former New Zealand international rugby player, Robbie Hunter-Paul.
Robbie Hunter-Paul
The former New Zealand International Rugby star led his professional club team to four Super League titles, two Challenge Cups, three World Club titles and more, in the pressure cooker that is a professional sport.
He now heads up the digital marketing company ‘Xtra Mile Marketing’ and is part of the delivery team for BBC Sport’s Challenge Cup and International Rugby League coverage.
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has hit every industry like a tidal wave.
Debt collections teams are being closed down across the world and unless your company has a digital strategy in place, you’ll also be feeling the weight of uncertainty hanging heavy on your shoulders. If your company is feeling the pinch, have you considered using a technology-driven Debt Collection Agency (DCA) to pick up the slack during this period?
Interested in our services? to book a digital, self-isolation friendly meeting.
Click Here
If/when the UK follows suit with other countries in Europe and the government enforces a national lockdown; it will put huge pressure on collections teams nationwide but your customers also live in a digital world. In 2018 Ofcom stated that nearly 80% of the UK public owned a smartphone (95% of 16-24yr olds). Whether it’s social media, communicating or paying for things online, feedback suggested people feel their devices were the one thing they couldn’t be without; and during this outbreak they won’t be.
Like all DCA’s we utilise all of the traditional collections tools but during these unprecedented, globally turbulent times, we’re blessed that over the past 10 years we’ve invested a huge amount of our resources into technology, developing state of the art automated systems, programmes and processes. This helps our clients’ customers manage their debt from the safety of their own homes.
Although we develop and use hundreds of digital services and tools in our business, following this outbreak we dug deep into our data to find out what technology is most relevant to collections teams and having the biggest impact on our clients’ customers.
So how are we helping our clients through this Coronavirus pandemic?
Well since 70% of our monthly collections are taken through our self service portal and only 30% through the human collectors, we are actually best placed to serve our clients requirements here. Therefore, where we sit on panels, our clients have of course chosen to increase our allocations this month to ensure that as their other DCA’s teams are forced into self isolation, our self service portal can continue to collect money.
In fact our whole digital customer journey is set up to process through payments, answer basic questions, identify and probe for vulnerability but most of all, allow the customer to review, confirm and make payment for their debts. AI bots also support this journey so it’s possible to continue BAU in these very uncertain times. This sense of true contingency planning through digital tech has really helped our clients be able to deliver the continuous service they were craving.
So whilst in these times, we have lots of additional work, this is just one area CRS are supporting clients in making life as ‘normal’ as possible and retaining a cashflow within our clients’ businesses. Further more, we’ve looked at how we can offer this technological package and digital customer journey to new clients and we now have a solution in place we can bring live in less than 24 hours!
During this unprecedented period, CRS are happy to support other UK businesses by sharing some of this key information, now’s definitely not the time for working in silos!
If you’d like to discuss the above or any of your contingency planning, we’re really here and happy to help. Please feel free to ring or email me on 07443 413555 or jamessq@creditresourcesolutions.co.uk
coeo are delighted to announce our brand-new event ‘Collections in the Digital Age’ taking place on the 5th of March 2020.
Looking to break the mould of traditional ‘collections industry’ gatherings by directing the day away from what has become standard subjects (Brexit, GDPR, wider economic issues) to tackling contemporary topics challenging the industry in the 21st century.
Under the spotlight will be key topics such as ‘Understanding the digital customer journey’ and ‘Utilising technology’ to enhance customer experience and understand which tools really are working. You’ll also hear from leading industry experts, sharing insight and experiences so delegates can benchmark their own operations.
There’s Limited places available, to secure your seat:
The event takes place at the Marriott Hotel, in the heart of Leeds city centre, the hotel positioned only metres away from a multi-story car park and situated a short 2 min walk from Leeds Train station. The event has been segmented into 6 key sessions covering crucial topics facing the 21st century collections team.
Industry benchmarking.
Have you ever wondered about the industry norms when it comes to debt collection? Are your processes in line with other companies within your sector and how do they compare versus the market as a whole? We’ll be providing an overview of the ‘typical’ collections & recoveries strategy, how they differ per industry and where the key touch points are.
Technology in Collections.
The customer journey has been at the forefront of most businesses over the past decade. In this session we will provide a view of debt collection through the ages and take a look at what can be done to support customers in the digital era. We won’t forget the creditors either: what do you expect and how can your needs be satisfied through advancements in tech?
The big Questions.
An interactive session with a wide-ranging panel of experts answering key questions on their processes. We’ll be starting off with a number of practical topics for discussion (no Brexit questions… we promise!) and then opening up the floor to give you an opportunity to seek answers to your big questions!
With less than two months to go we have limited spaces left, click and secure your seat now!
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has hit every industry like a tidal wave.
Debt collections teams are being closed down across the world and unless your company has a digital strategy in place, you’ll also be feeling the weight of uncertainty hanging heavy on your shoulders.
Recently we hosted ‘Collections in the Digital Age’ our inaugural event. A key feature of the day was the expert panel discussion on a range of questions surrounding technology and its impact on the Collections industry. We excited to be able to bring you the audio recordings from the day and present the transcript in this post and as a podcast on our CRS SoundCloud page.
With a senior management background, Gary’s experience includes Senior Strategy Consultant in different utility businesses in the UK including e.on, First and now Spark. Further to this, Gary spent over 5 years at Dollar Financial Group enhancing and honing his strategic skills.
Caroline has worked in the Debt Collection industry since 1993 and gained extensive experience at several collection agencies and solicitors’ practices. Caroline is a well-known industry figure and brings extensive compliance experience and knowledge to CRS and is also a member of the prestigious Credit 500.
Tony Gunderson (TG)30 years + experience in financial services
Tony has worked in the Financial Services Sector for the past 30 years at NatWest, Provident Financial Group and latterly as Director/Country Manager for Ferratum Group’s UK operation.
Lisa Beeching (LB)Head of Supplier Management and Quality Assurance at 1st Central
Lisa is currently Head of Supplier Management and Quality assurance at 1st Central Insurance and Technology managing key supplier relationships across 45 suppliers spanning all operational areas from sales through to claims.
Hosted by:
James Squires (JS)Business Development Director at CRS
Interested in our services? To book a digital, self-isolation friendly, meeting.
Welcome to the third episode of our ‘The Big Questions’ podcast series, where we bring you a panel of experts from our recent live event ‘Collections in the Digital Age’.
Our first-class line up were challenged on the day to dive deep and discuss the ‘biggest questions’ facing the collections industry in the age of technology.
The impact of social media on the financial sector has been incredible. Research finds nearly all Fortune 500 financial services organisations have active social media profiles, and in the UK alone there is an amazing 42 million users, leaving no doubt of the engagement muscle.
We know social media is a powerful communications tool but the next question we then need to ask is; is it an appropriate or acceptable channel for the collections industry to use to interact with customers?
In this episode our panel tackles this question head on.
With a senior management background, Gary’s experience includes Senior Strategy Consultant in different utility businesses in the UK including e.on, First and now Spark. Further to this, Gary spent over 5 years at Dollar Financial Group enhancing and honing his strategic skills.
Caroline has worked in the Debt Collection industry since 1993 and gained extensive experience at several collection agencies and solicitors’ practices. Caroline is a well-known industry figure and brings extensive compliance experience and knowledge to coeo and is also a member of the prestigious Credit 500.
Tony Gunderson (TG)30 years + experience in financial services
Tony has worked in the Financial Services Sector for the past 30 years at NatWest, Provident Financial Group and latterly as Director/Country Manager for Ferratum Group’s UK operation.
Lisa Beeching (LB)Head of Supplier Management and Quality Assurance at 1st Central
Lisa is currently Head of Supplier Management and Quality assurance at 1st Central Insurance and Technology managing key supplier relationships across 45 suppliers spanning all operational areas from sales through to claims.
Hosted by:
James Squires (JS)Business Development Director at coeo
Interested in our services? To book a digital, self-isolation friendly, meeting.
Now that you’ve met the panel let’s see how they wrestled with this ‘Big Question’, it kicks off with our host on the day James Squires…
JS:“Is social media an acceptable channel in collections whether that be inbound or outbound? Lisa do you mind if I start with yourself?”
LB: “No, but a lot of it is down to customer preference and how your customers have interacted with you in the first place.”
“Social media is one of those where it has to be managed very carefully; it’s all in the public eye. You can’t stop a customer coming to you on social media, but it’s how you manage what lands on there and how quickly you can get them into a private message. But ultimately the point of this is: it’s not about how they communicate; it’s about giving them the choice of communication.”
“From our point of view most of our customers buy online from us. We know they’ve got a preference for an online journey, so we make sure when it comes to collections we offer them all the varied from online payments, to payments in the IVR. Do they want to talk to someone about those more difficult ones?”
“I think what they’ve touched on today around multichannel is absolutely right, it’s taking it that step further into what was called omni-channel if you’ve heard of it in the contact centre world, so it’s about being able to do that channel shift.”
“The chatbot and the results that these guys have spoken about today are phenomenal results, but it’s making sure that when you’re in that chatbot the customer can seamlessly move and say ‘actually this bot has got me so far but I’ve still got some questions, actually now I want chat to a human’ and how you simplistically send that link across and enable them to do that and then from that point ‘actually, no still not working I need a conversation’.”
“So, for those more difficult conversations it’s how you then send them a number that links them straight away and says, ‘yep phone that number now I’ve got someone available that can talk this through with you immediately’.”
“It’s important to have your systems link up so that the agent that lands with that phone call has got an absolute history of what was said by the chatbot with the customer: that’s the web chat so the agent that lands on it has got a full history of that conversation and the customer is not starting from scratch. And I’d add don’t be deceived by their analytics stuff that they can do around chat and how to automate it, it’s brilliant.”
“It takes a while, I’m sure you guys have felt the pain, but before you can put anything live in a chatbot or across your emails you need a minimum of 3 to 6 months of doing nothing other than putting data analytics over the top of it. Listening to everything that comes out of that and then from that data you then have to start deciphering, from a chatbot point of view, what are the right answers to give back to these questions because customers bless them will ask the same thing in about a million different ways and it’s just being able to decipher that. And from an analytics point of view that data analytics journey never ends. You’re constantly reviewing it; you’re constantly doing it. So yes to achieve the 60-70% online ‘no customer contact’ efficiencies that we would all love to have you do need to make sure you do the thing from the start right and invest the time in understanding your analytics and you customer needs or else it will fail fairly fast.”
CB:“Have you been looking at the coeo project plan? ha ha. Because you’re absolutely right there is a constant, constant, constant review – we’ll never ever, ever, ever stop reviewing the bot’s responses, the website and the journeys that the customers take on those, it’s months and months and years of research and studying.”
LB:“Can you use social media? You can use any communication method that the customer is happy to interact with. Ultimately, it’s not about what you want to use it’s about what the customer wants to use and what are they more comfortable doing.”
“So, as we talk about the new generation coming up that don’t like to have phone calls, then you’ve also got the element of: people don’t like to talk about debt, it’s an emotive subject; people don’t want to talk about it. If they’ve got the option to go online and just pay and not have to have a difficult conversation, most customers, as we can see, will take that route so it’s just giving them an option.”
“Then the ones that really do need a conversation because they can’t afford it. It’s allowing that channel of actually I do need to pick up the phone. And you said with these guys having someone that you know within 20 seconds is going to answer you and be able to give you a reassuring proper assessment of your financial needs.”
JS: “Its funny actually you started that whole sentence there about how it really depended on how the customer first came in to the business and I wonder then if I could just pick up on that point and say: so I broke the question down initially into whether we found it acceptable to use social media which is a very personal platform isn’t it? And whether we accept that actually it’s ok to receive that inbound and then communicate outbound or whether actually its ok to flip that and make assumptions as to whether we can communicate out initially on social media?”
LB:“I’d say initially social; social is probably the least used method of communication because it can be public. I mean if we’re doing it, we’re going to do it in a private way, but people use social for their private lives and it can feel quite intrusive if you start going into that space.”
“You know thinking about Facebook, stuff like that, you’ve got your friends on there, you’ve got your family photos. You don’t really want a debt collection agency coming along and going ‘hiya, can I have some money please’. However if they come to you and engage with you on that platform then yes absolutely keep them in their channel of choice. That’s how they want to do it. That’s what they feel comfortable in. Keep them in that channel as much as you can.”
JS:“Tony, again listening to what Lisa was saying there, it’s coming through loud and clear that we need to be very adaptive and we need to react to how the customer wants us to communicate. Do you agree with those sentiments around inbound and outbound communication with social media?”
TG:“Yes, to a large extent. I think with social media, a lot of companies will use it in terms of their marketing strategy, and they’ll try and place ads in front of the right type of demographics and segments, which is a little bit different, but even in there it’s not always seen as appropriate.”
“Obviously, you’ve got your various influencers out there that people are trying to use as part of their marketing strategy as well, but I think that’s still slightly remote. Whereas what you seem to be talking about is direct contact through social media which I think is a completely different thing and I’m not always sure that certainly some types of customers would understand what is actually going in the public domain as a result of the conversation they’re having with you. So, I would be very weary of going down that route without some real clarity from the customer that they understand exactly how the communication is going to go and what can and can’t be said.”
“I think before you would engage into a full-on, ‘this is your outstanding balance’, ‘this is what we want you to do’ etc. I think you’d have to have a lot of clarity that the customer understood that, or you’d find quite quickly your complaint levels going up considerably.”
“I think its maybe got a place and maybe it’s in the softer side of collections but again it’s all about have you got the customers to consent to do what you’re going to do? Do they understand fully what they’re opening themselves up to?”
“So, I think we’ve probably got quite a way to go before that would come in. And plus social media trends are changing you know Instagram is far bigger than Facebook nowadays so what do you do? Pop a picture of something up there for them to do, so you know I think it’s not as simple as that I think there’s a lot to be considered before I would go down that route.”
Thanks for joining us and be sure to tune in to Episode 4: ‘Should relatable language be used in the collections process?‘ next week.
To listen to more of ‘The Big Questions’ series to visit The coeo Podcast SoundCloud page
The digital age has impacted every traditional aspect of modern living and none more so than language.
With an incredible 45.1 million (2019) daily internet users it has never been more important to make sure your debt collections communication style is fit for purpose.
Earlier this year we invited a guest panel of experts to take the stand at our ‘Collections in the Digital Age’ event and encouraged them to discuss some of ‘The Biggest Questions’ facing the collections industry. We recorded the discussion and have presented it as a podcast for your listening pleasure and below we’ve also added the transcript for you to explore it in detail.
In this episode the panel explores the use of ‘relatable’ language in the collections industry, discussing tone, timing and trouble (or how to avoid it).
With a senior management background, Gary’s experience includes Senior Strategy Consultant in different utility businesses in the UK including e.on, First and now Spark. Further to this, Gary spent over 5 years at Dollar Financial Group enhancing and honing his strategic skills.
Caroline has worked in the Debt Collection industry since 1993 and gained extensive experience at several collection agencies and solicitors’ practices. Caroline is a well-known industry figure and brings extensive compliance experience and knowledge to coeo and is also a member of the prestigious Credit 500.
Tony Gunderson (TG)30 years + experience in financial services
Tony has worked in the Financial Services Sector for the past 30 years at NatWest, Provident Financial Group and latterly as Director/Country Manager for Ferratum Group’s UK operation.
Lisa Beeching (LB)Head of Supplier Management and Quality Assurance at 1st Central
Lisa is currently Head of Supplier Management and Quality assurance at 1st Central Insurance and Technology managing key supplier relationships across 45 suppliers spanning all operational areas from sales through to claims.
Hosted by:
James Squires (JS)Business Development Director at coeo
Interested in our services? To book a digital, self-isolation friendly, meeting.
Click Here
Enjoy!
JS: “Is there a growing consideration that relatable or informal language should be used in the collections process? And I’ve got an example actually so terminology such as ‘oops have you forgotten something’ versus maybe ‘your payment’s overdue’, so actually changing the tone in which we speak to people. Gary, I can see you nodding your head there so do you want to start us off on this one?”
GG:“Yeah absolutely, me and Mark had a conversation on the way up in the car today around this.”
“In terms of the language, I think what a change in language can do is: give the customer a feeling that actually, the collections process has escalated.”
“So you could start off with an ‘oops it looks like you’ve missed your payment arrangement, you owe x, y and z’ and actually when you get through the collections path you can then turn it to something more formal because of course you know, in terms of our collections path, you’ll be moving onto a legal strategy potentially anyway; so that’s the sort of language that you’re heading towards.”
“I think from the more traditional side of me, I would probably in my personal opinion like a formal approach all the way through so you know exactly where you stand, but actually I think in terms of allowing the customer to understand that the heats been turned up a little bit, for want of a better word, I think it’s an opportunity to change the language a bit.”
JS:“Caroline?”
CB:“I agree with Gary. I think the statements and the ‘oops have you forgotten your payment’ is really appropriate in early arrears but as you get through the collections journey and start to reach the legal stages then it needs to be a matter of fact and statements that, as Tim alluded to earlier, gone are the ‘ifs, buts and maybes’ but ‘this will happen as a consequence if you don’t do x, y and z’. I think it has its place depending upon where you are in the debt cycle.”
JS:“And Lisa, just really to expand that point then. Someone asked the question earlier on about what sort of analysis is now available in terms of the data that we interpret and I suppose would there be an argument to say that actually this is an area that we look to analyse the data, A/B test of statements at that early arrears stage and really try to understand actually what drives the most engagement at that stage?”
LB: “Absolutely, it’s all about where you are on that journey. So from our point of view for a customer that fails on their initial direct debit day 1 due date, what they get from us is, ‘oh we’ve not been able to collect, don’t worry we’re going to go out and retry for that, you don’t need to do anything, we’re just going to go and reapply’. And that is very softly worded, no issues. Most of those collections on the second attempt go through with no contact from the customer, it’s one of those beautiful automated things that we all love.”
“As you go down and that second one doesn’t clear then you have to make it more, you know, ‘actually you’ve now got fourteen days and if you don’t bring this up to date we’re going to cancel your policy’ it becomes a bit more of a serious message.”
“Then we have to add the words from an insurance point of view of, ‘we need to make you aware it’s a legal requirement to have your vehicle insured’ so there’s only so far you can go with the ‘oops’.”
“As well from analytics, yes you’ve got all of the profiles: so you know your customer, you know their age brackets, you probably know their preferred way of communicating so you can take bits of that and personalise those journeys for those different customers.”
“I think the stage of the collection is vital as to what goes into that and yes day 1 absolutely let’s try and keep it a bit light-hearted because people immediately feel anxious ‘oh I’ve got to pay them and take a bit of that worry away’, but once you know they’re being a bit more reluctant about giving that money over you do need to go down a much more formal process and keep it all above board so to speak.”
GG:“The other part of it is you’re obviously trying to retain a customer. You know if a customer has forgotten a payment you don’t really want to go in and be formal and for it to feel like harsh treatment, you want to retain that customer. And it’s something that we talk about quite often in the team which is, ‘you know we understand that we’re a collections department, but we also know that we need to retain a customer and just strike that balance between the two.”
JS:“Great point, great point. Thank you for that.”
Thanks for joining us and be sure to tune in to Episode 5: ‘What’s the future for outsourced collections work?‘ next week.
To listen to more of ‘The Big Questions’ series to visit The coeo Podcast SoundCloud page
As a DCA we’ve enjoyed incredible growth over the past decade.
We set our stall out by embracing new technology as a unique selling point and built success on the back of strong and deep collections foundations. With over 150 collective years of traditional and new age industry experience, we know we’re in a good place to continue our development arc.
But complacency is the killer of progress, so we know we need to keep our ‘finger on the pulse’ to make sure we adapt to the changing needs of our clients and their customers. The Collections industry is in continuous evolution so understanding the direction of the industry and how we can best serve it, is integral to moving forward.
Earlier this year we invited a guest panel of experts to take the stand at our ‘Collections in the Digital Age’ event and encouraged them to discuss some of ‘The Biggest Questions’ facing the collections industry. We recorded the discussion and have presented it as a podcast for your listening pleasure and below we’ve also added the transcript so you can explore it in detail.
In this episode of our ‘The Biggest Questions’ podcast series we challenged our panel of experts to forecast the future of outsourced collections, you can now listen or read the transcript on what they had to say.
With a senior management background, Gary’s experience includes Senior Strategy Consultant in different utility businesses in the UK including e.on, First and now Spark. Further to this, Gary spent over 5 years at Dollar Financial Group enhancing and honing his strategic skills.
Caroline has worked in the Debt Collection industry since 1993 and gained extensive experience at several collection agencies and solicitors’ practices. Caroline is a well-known industry figure and brings extensive compliance experience and knowledge to coeo and is also a member of the prestigious Credit 500.
Tony Gunderson (TG)30 years + experience in financial services
Tony has worked in the Financial Services Sector for the past 30 years at NatWest, Provident Financial Group and latterly as Director/Country Manager for Ferratum Group’s UK operation.
Lisa Beeching (LB)Head of Supplier Management and Quality Assurance at 1st Central
Lisa is currently Head of Supplier Management and Quality assurance at 1st Central Insurance and Technology managing key supplier relationships across 45 suppliers spanning all operational areas from sales through to claims.
Hosted by:
James Squires (JS)Business Development Director at coeo
Interested in our services? To book a digital, self-isolation friendly, meeting.
Please enjoy!
JS: “What’s the future for outsourced collections work? Who shall we go too for this… Tony?”
TG: “Yeah, I think the future for outsourced collections is probably very good to be perfectly honest. I think as we’ve said earlier on what you want in each part of your business is expertise.”
“Now you would hope, for example, that we as lenders are experts, in terms of assessing the risk of how much we can lend to somebody, the likelihood of them paying back etc and that’s a big part of what we do; when we get that wrong then you know our business will fall, but in probably smaller to medium-sized companies, you’re not necessarily going to have the expertise in terms of the collections side.”
“Again it’s in partnership, I would always see things like this as in a partnership, you’d probably want almost as an arm of your own company; whilst we know it’s outsourced you’d want that relationship to be such that you feel it’s more part of your company whether that’s via the white-labelled or not.”
“It’s like Tim was saying in terms of values, mission statements etc, you’d want that to flow through the process even though somebody else was managing at that time for you. So, it’s up to a lot of good communication and interaction between the companies but I see there’s a big place for outsourcing, definitely.”
JS: “And you mentioned there, you know, within a smaller organisation where there was potentially a lack of expertise I suppose could there be an argument to also say that actually even in larger organisations there will always be an opportunity for champion challenging against your internal practices?”
TG: “Yeah absolutely because you want to get two things: the best results that you can but also you want to ensure the outcome for the customer, which from a regulatory point of view is what you’ve got to focus on. If you can manage those two through partnerships, because there’s going to be things: if you look at coeo as an example, you’ve got a range of different debts that you’re collecting, you’ve got a range of different strategies that even some of the big companies may not be coming across, they haven’t needed to use a certain strategy or the experience as they’ve moved into different products. So, I think yes there’s still another opportunity there as well.”
JS: “Brilliant, brilliant. Yes, Gary?
GG: “I agree with Tony wholeheartedly. I think in terms of that business partnership; I always feel like the litmus test for a white label DCA where they’re acting on behalf of you and as far as the customer is concerned they are part of your company, the litmus test is that they don’t know that they’re speaking to another entity, that they continue to think that they’re speaking to Spark, I think that’s quite critical.”
“Then some of the things that you’ve touched upon today: so you know you’ve talked a lot about AI and technology, as a department within the organisation, we are continually competing with the other departments for IT resource and funding for the different things that we do. What I see a DCA as, in part, is an opportunity to sort of bypass that and go ‘do you know what all of these tools that I wanted, it’s ok the DCAs got them, I’ll utilise them’ and then I don’t have to sort of duke it out with the other departments in terms of who’s going to get a budget for what IT resource’.
“I think that’s quite critical and when we’re looking at DCAs it’s an integral part of the offering. You know what functions they have, what channels they operate on, are they multifaceted.”
“Within Selkirk, which is where the collections department is based, we have a real difficulty in recruitment just because of the local area’s location so we purely use a debt collection agency to supplement some of our staff. So, you know when we are taking a little while to recruit people then we will use them for a period of time and then when we’ve got loads of staff then we’ll sort of give them back. So that business partnership element is kind of fundamental to us.”
JS: “Great ok. I’ll bypass you for this question Caroline haha. But Lisa if you wouldn’t mind giving your opinion on this one as well.”
LB: “I think I agree. We use it from a white label point of view from early doors. We use it very successfully. it’s a seamless journey.”
“We do it because you guys have got the expertise. We’ve talked today around where you guys are going; the whole point of this conference is around digital, and the investments that you guys have made are ahead of what we’ve got internally.”
“I’m sure all companies here have their own internal agendas and things on the roadmap and their IT resources are tied up until the end of that time. To be able to lean on you guys both in having that digital capability because this is your bread and butter, it’s what you do, but also there’s an expertise that comes with it. It makes sense for us to continue to use that expertise and take the stress and strain away from us, we would do the work at the very first point but once it starts getting a little more time consuming when you guys can do it as efficiently as you can, and get the results that you get; it makes sense for us.”
“The alternative: we haven’t got all of the voice the clever stuff, so we’d be that organisation sitting there with 50 people on the phone trying to do it. So, it wouldn’t make good business sense certainly for us at this point in our journey to be able to do a thing like that. We’ll take your expertise.
GG: “Just a last point. Just a comment around the Coronavirus. As far as sort of outsourced collections is concerned you know we have debt collections agencies specialised in specific areas dotted throughout the UK. So, in terms of contingency for us we can quickly move, should there be any issues, to our different partners to help support us. You know when I talk about a business partnership, I mean it in the truest sense of the word.
JS: “Yes, I didn’t think about that actually, but it really does spread the risk for you doesn’t it.
Thanks for joining us and be sure to tune in to Episode 6: ‘Does segmentation work and what factors do you consider when segmenting?‘ next week.
To listen to more of ‘The Big Questions’ series to visit The coeo Podcast SoundCloud page
William Shakespeare famously penned the words “all that glitters is not gold” meaning just because it shines like gold doesn’t mean it will turn out to be gold.
The significance of that message is as important today in Collections as it was during the 16th century when the English poet and playwright created his Merchants of Venice masterpiece.
One thing can be agreed is that people by nature and nurture are different, even those that grow up in the same house can often end up as different as chalk and cheese. Treating all accounts on a case by case basis might end up being a waste of resources, but luckily when experience and data are applied collections teams can place individuals into segmented groups to help manage them, but does this really help?
In this episode of the ‘The Biggest Questions’ series, from our Collections in the Digital Age event. We invited a first-class panel of experts to discuss whether segmentation does work and if so what factors need to be considered when segmenting.
We recorded the conversation and added it to The coeo Podcast for your listening pleasure as well as adding the direct transcripts below for you to pick over in detail.
With a senior management background, Gary’s experience includes Senior Strategy Consultant in different utility businesses in the UK including e.on, First and now Spark. Further to this, Gary spent over 5 years at Dollar Financial Group enhancing and honing his strategic skills.
Caroline has worked in the Debt Collection industry since 1993 and gained extensive experience at several collection agencies and solicitors’ practices. Caroline is a well-known industry figure and brings extensive compliance experience and knowledge to coeo and is also a member of the prestigious Credit 500.
Tony Gunderson (TG)30 years + experience in financial services
Tony has worked in the Financial Services Sector for the past 30 years at NatWest, Provident Financial Group and latterly as Director/Country Manager for Ferratum Group’s UK operation.
Lisa Beeching (LB)Head of Supplier Management and Quality Assurance at 1st Central
Lisa is currently Head of Supplier Management and Quality assurance at 1st Central Insurance and Technology managing key supplier relationships across 45 suppliers spanning all operational areas from sales through to claims.
HOSTED BY:
James Squires (JS)Business Development Director at coeo
Interested in our services? to book a digital, self-isolation friendly, meeting.
Does segmentation work and what factors do you consider when segmenting?
JS: “Lisa can I start with you on this one please? So, in your experience does segmentation work and what factors would you consider when segmenting?”
LB: “Yes, segmentation can work, it depends on what factors you’re looking at.”
“Certainly, from a size of debt, the profile of the customer; if you look at their criteria, certainly when you get to that legal point in the journey, have they got property and stuff that could go against it?”
“There’s a load of things that you need to think about actually from a financial point of view if they’ve got anything you can hold as collateral before going down these collection marks.”
“From a small size debt honestly, you don’t want to waste too much time with them. Anything below £50 you’re almost saying it’s not really worth the time and effort, other than a really quick automated process and let’s see if we can get it in.”
“So yes, I would segment – 1) based on value and 2) based on the financial risks of that customer and what collateral they’ve got for you.”
JS: “And I suppose that goes back to your earlier point about different journeys and making it individual to the customer?
LB: “Yes”
JS:“Gary could I just ask you to give your opinion on that one?”
GG: “Yeah of course. So, we operate a champion challenge within Spark Energy we use a lot of different DCAs mainly for their specialisation, but we do have a panel of DCAs that we use on white label.”
“When we segment the data and place, it if we use Lisa’s point; look at the balance, where we can see that balance, we can put some of the competition at risk.”
“What I mean but this is: imagine we were both DCAs and you had £1000 worth of debt to chase and I had £1000. I had one account at £1000 and you had ten, well you’ve got the easiest job to do and I haven’t so when we go to the segmentation we are looking at balance, we’re also looking at contact details; the name on the account and also what part of the collections journey they might be in?”
“For example, if they are a finalised account and they’ve left a property we will segment those customers off and follow that trace and collection path that ultimately will lead to us maximising our collections performance so that’s on a very basic level.”
“When you look at it on a far more detailed level the information that we get back from the credit reference agency, as I mentioned earlier, is the key thing that we use to segment our book. So, we know if you’re a very high-risk customer, guess what your collections path is going to be quite short and actually you might skip some parts of the path.”
“So rather than go white label – second placement – pre-disconnection visit and then warrant, actually you might skip the white label and go straight through to second placement and have an expedited collections path. It’s really key that you know when you’re segmenting the book where your risks are and making sure that you’re focussing quite heavily in that area.”
Thanks for joining us and be sure to tune in to Episode 7: ‘Is there a platform that customers prefer to open up about personal issues on?‘ next week.
To listen to more of ‘The Big Questions’ series to visit The coeo Podcast SoundCloud page
Dealing with an increasing number of vulnerable customers has become more prevalent in the collections industry over the past few years.
At coeo we‘ve developed bespoke software to help us identify and support these customers appropriately.
We understand that there’s a myriad of moving parts needed to make sure the customer is supported correctly, and as often happens, problem debt walks hand in hand with other issues, meaning it’s an ever-evolving challenge.
As a DCA, we look to invest resources into the development of tools and processes to increase our service offering for this group and communication is key to its success. We believe understanding the important points of contact and correct channels for interaction is crucial for successful engagement and outcomes for vulnerable customers.
In this episode of our ‘The Biggest Questions’ podcast series, we asked a panel of experts whether there was a platform that customers prefer to open up about personal issues? We recorded the discussion and have presented it as a podcast for your listening pleasure and below we’ve also added the transcript so you can explore it in detail. (Content is taken from our event ‘Collections in the Digital Age’ earlier this year).
With a senior management background, Gary’s experience includes Senior Strategy Consultant in different utility businesses in the UK including e.on, First and now Spark. Further to this, Gary spent over 5 years at Dollar Financial Group enhancing and honing his strategic skills.
Caroline has worked in the Debt Collection industry since 1993 and gained extensive experience at several collection agencies and solicitors’ practices. Caroline is a well-known industry figure and brings extensive compliance experience and knowledge to coeo and is also a member of the prestigious Credit 500.
Tony Gunderson (TG)30 years + experience in financial services
Tony has worked in the Financial Services Sector for the past 30 years at NatWest, Provident Financial Group and latterly as Director/Country Manager for Ferratum Group’s UK operation.
Lisa Beeching (LB)Head of Supplier Management and Quality Assurance at 1st Central
Lisa is currently Head of Supplier Management and Quality assurance at 1st Central Insurance and Technology managing key supplier relationships across 45 suppliers spanning all operational areas from sales through to claims.
Hosted by:
James Squires (JS)Business Development Director at coeo
Interested in our services? to book a digital, self-isolation friendly, meeting.
Click Here
Please enjoy!
JS: “Is there a platform that customers actually prefer to open up about personal issues that you experience? And when I’m talking personal issues I’m talking about maybe: mental health issues, financial issues… Do you notice that at all?”
CB:“We do and the preferred method of communication that we’re seeing at the moment is a big swing towards email.”
“We flag more customers as vulnerable via our email platform than we do on the voice. So, the customers are really happy to sort of sit and you’ll get really long war and peace emails about what the circumstances are, even how they got to this point because they’re doing it without that interaction of a human.”
“We’re able to make our decisions from there about what we need to do with that customer, and it’s much more free-flow conversation via the email than it is over the voice because even though they’re talking to you over the telephone they’ve still got that embarrassment, they’ve still got to open up, they may not have even told their families that this is how they’re feeling. But they will tell us via email very much so that these are the current circumstances.”
JS:“That’s really interesting. Gary do you notice the same thing?”
GG:“Yeah, we will also get a similar issue with most of the mediums that don’t involve a voice to voice human interaction so we will also get it over chat as well, we will also see it sometimes on letters.”
“So, it does tend to be they don’t really want to speak to somebody about it they just want to say what they’ve got to say, leave it with you, and then it’ll help you decide on what you’re going to do next.”
JS:“Very interesting. Tony, same question?”
TG:“I think certainly in our customer service and collections work where I think we pickup vulnerability more-so is in terms of the attitude of the customer, what they’re saying, how anxious they are. Maybe the number of contacts they make is probably the key for us in terms of how we pick up on that area. SMS tends to be our main way of communicating with customers and seems to be their preferred option in terms of getting back to us.”
“It was interesting what you were saying before in terms of their ability when you’re getting large volumes of information and how do you get into that as quickly as you can to get to the nub of what the question is or what the information requirement is.
“I think that’s certainly one of the learnings that can be taken away from today for myself is to understand how we can probably do that more effectively, by maybe not just using the subject line but by delving a little deeper into the information that you’re getting.”
“I certainly don’t think we’ve seen a big shift away from SMS just at the moment and that may be still driven by ourselves because that’s what we believe is the main way how we tend to get the best responses from customers, but I think it’s ever-evolving because I think with the way and the ability for chats to happen online in a different way is probably moving things as well. So, if you’ve got the ability with your chatbots to have a conversation I think that’s probably helping customers quite a bit, certainly from my experience SMS is still the key for us.”
JS: “It’ll be interesting maybe Paul will touch on this later on actually in terms of the customer feedback to maybe help to see if we can add some more meat to the bones here.”
Thanks for joining us and be sure to tune in to Episode 8 next week for our final episode in the ‘Big Questions’ series, and this time it’s the questions we received from the audience.
To listen to more of ‘The Big Questions’ series to visit The coeo Podcast SoundCloud page
