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In Focus Collections Looking forward together


Last month, CCRMagazine and Esendex brought together a group of senior professionals to discuss the future of the collections sector. They were: Mark Higgins, chairman, Ascent Performance Group (MHI); Jannie Vermeulen, credit risk officer, Fleet Mortgages; Andrew Alder, head of partnerships, PayPlan (AA); Martin Wicks, risk & internal audit manager, ARC (Europe) (MW); John Preston, head of billing, collections and revenue assurance, Tesco Mobile; Jaki Merrett, group head of collections and recoveries, OneSavings Bank (JM); Marie Marsden, head of credit operations, Shop Direct Financial Services (MM); Graham Price, independent professional (GP); Clive Jacobs, credit manager, Dong Energy UK; Mark Bryant, compliance director, SLL Capital; Negeen Arasteh, head of recoveries litigation, Funding Circle (NA); Michael Hoare, head of risk analytics & retail credit, RateSetter (MH); Kishan Bhatt, collections & recoveries external placement manager, First Utility; Victoria Herd, director, Hilton-Baird Collection Services (VH); Frank Horvath, managing director, Link Financial Outsourcing (FH); Denise Crossley, CEO, MMF (DC); Adam Rathbone, solutions consultant, Esendex (AR); and James O’Hare, head of commercial team UK&I, Esendex (JO)


What are the most effective methods of customer engagement today? NA: Customer engagement is extremely important to us and particularly in the Collections and Recoveries area. We brought the entire Collections and Recoveries function in-house at the start of 2014 and one of the main drivers for doing so was customer satisfaction; to create a team that deals predominantly with the collections and recoveries process. As a platform, we have to find a solution that best suits both investors and borrowers. So, over the years, we have developed certain policies to create clarity and alignment: we call this the ‘Enlightened Collections Strategy’. Essentially, there are three pillars: firstly, ‘survival for revival’ means believing the borrower or guarantor will be a success after they have weathered the storm of financial distress. Secondly, organisational self-awareness is key to building trust. When a small business owner is in financial distress, they experience fear, confusion, and suspicion. It is our role to turn this into trust, loyalty


and commitment so that a new relationship can be established, which results in better recoveries for investors and higher borrower satisfaction. Thirdly, transparency and responsiveness enable us to find fair and affordable solutions. Investors will want to know why the business has failed, expected recoveries and the next steps. Relevant information from the owner will be passed on to investors to help them understand the position and possibly make provision.


MH: I can talk a little about what does not work! I have experience of a firm which interacted with its customers entirely online


You had this complete disconnect between how people interacted with the business on a day-to-day basis, and how collections would contact them


or through their app. For the lending side, the primary contact strategy was telephone- based. They did not have SMS, e-mails, or notifications through the app. You had this complete disconnect between how people interacted with the business on a day-to-day basis, and how collections would contact them. So people had never received a telephone call from the business before until they got into collections, and then it was all about telephone calls. They did not consider how the customers would typically interact with them and what they would expect. The ideal engagement strategy is: ‘what does the customer expect, how do they expect to be contacted, how do they expect to interact with you as a business?’ If you have acquired them through a branch, they will typically expect to contact you through a branch or maybe a telephone; if you acquire them online, it must be an online channel.


GP: I have delved into the variable techniques for customer contact in the past and have found that, even


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Left-right: Clive Jacobs; Denise Crossley; Frank Horvath; Graham Price; Jaki Merrett December 2017 www.CCRMagazine.co.uk 33


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