In Focus Collections
Left-right: Stuart Sykes; Craig Proctor; Luke Harrison; Marie Moffatt; Rachel Vann >>
‘oh yes, we do that’, but when we ask if they do it in collections, they
will say no.
RF: It is part of treating customers fairly – you have to treat them in the same way at the goodbye stage as you treated them at the sign-up stage. This is what customers expect, and what they deserve.
LV:Why would you not do it that way? The easy customers are the ones that call you, but if you only have one route in, through the call centre, then you will only get hold of the same people every time, which will be maybe 50% of people in arrears. It will be the other 50% that you need more channels for. So you give them an excuse to contact you.
RF: The engagement is the first and most critical piece of everything that you do with the customer; there is always the call to action, and that can take many forms. But digital is an ideal space to present the self- serve environment, and that can look and feel as it needs to for that particular customer, whether it is doing a self-assessment for affordability, putting together a repayment plan, checking balances, seeing exactly where they are in the cycle of that particular debt, and maybe even assessing a more global picture for themselves, not just you, but other creditors as well. People do not generally stop paying because they think that it is going to be funny; they stop paying because they have an inability to pay. So we have found, for example, that presenting people with tools to do a full assessment often inspires them to keep engaged with us in a more meaningful way. Particularly the emerging companies are using these new
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technologies. It is cheap, and it is also a great way of communicating with your customers. So when things go wrong, why make it difficult? Why remove those channels? Why, all of a sudden, would WhatsApp, Messenger, SMS all disappear as contact options for the customer?
How have your communications strategies evolved in recent times? DP: I was very lucky, a couple of weeks ago, to go on a visit with Christians Against Poverty (CAP) to one of their clients. They work with people who are experiencing acute levels of financial difficulty and who often have developed a mistrust of lenders and creditors. What was interesting to see, during the visit, was the way that the CAP debt- centre manager started to build the relationship with the client, and you could see the client starting to feel that he was with someone he could trust, who was there to help. It was a non-judgmental, but firm conversation, identifying all of the debts held by the client. Trust is essential to working productively with consumers and, while difficult for creditors to achieve, that should be the ultimate aim.
RF: Debt recovery and debt management may not wish to admit it, but have more synergy now than they have ever had, in terms of the types of conversation that you
have with a customer, particularly when it comes back to the 68% who do want to interact with you on the telephone. It is about investing into the training of your people, to get your customer to open up and tell you the truth; and it could be hard truths, like that they have got themselves tied into a really tricky agreement for a car, they have been reckless and got themselves the latest smartphone, and they now understand that this is why they are in their current situation. Then you need to work with the customer. We spend a lot of time training our agents to recognise in themselves how they are reacting to the customer, because that is often where problems start. I used to head up training, and I used to say to people: “I can never go back to a client and tell them that this month we have collected X amount, but we won 27 arguments!” That has no monetary value for me, it has no monetary value for the client, and it has no purpose. It is not about winning the conversation. Digital is a really powerful way of starting that for us.
It is about investing into the training of your people, to get your customer to open up and tell you the truth
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SW: Given that it was only a couple of years ago the FCA found misconduct with collectors using fake law firms, it is great to hear we are now going in the exact opposite direction to create that positivity at the start. In terms of building trust, we see strong practices of recruiting from retail or the services industry who have experience in dealing with inflamed situations and turning them around. The Samaritans are a powerful tool, who have incredible knowledge to impart, including spotting vulnerable customers, highlighting what they are seeing in cases where there is financial distress and examples of how to turn around a situation where someone has not engaged.
March 2018
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