The Analysis News & Opinions


Firms responsible for agents’ needs?


Credit and collections organisations must ensure that their agents have access to the best support and advice, as well as to modern science, if they are to provide appropriate support to customers. Andrew Jackson, head of collections and


recoveries at Funding Circle, said: “We are working to improve the way that we engage with clients through a deeper understanding of social cognitive neuroscience. “The relationship between agent and


customer is brain-to-brain and so better engagement comes from consistently having the right mental state to deal with each customer appropriately. This involves supporting agents generally in the role, and understanding how their role uses different parts of the brain at different times. It is important that you do not exhaust one part of the brain to the detriment of quality. “So, for example, if people are doing lots


of repetitive tasks, then they will be using their basal ganglia and resting their pre- frontal cortex, but if they are doing a lot of understanding, decision-making and prioritising then it is the pre-frontal cortex that is being used. The pre-frontal cortex gets tired quickly, so you need to mix up the activities of the brain to maintain a high quality of customer engagement. By understanding how the brain functions, and how it interacts with other brains, we can help our collections agents remain highly focused and attentive to every single call.” Speaking at a discussion run by


CCRMagazine in association with Ascent Performance Group, last month, Mr Jackson said: “Customer engagement starts and ends with the collections agent, so we need to look after our agents just as much as we care for our customers. We know that our team deals with some extreme emotional issues, and this can have an emotional toll on them. “It is our responsibility to ensure that their


mental health and safety in the workplace is prioritised as highly as their physical health and safety. So we have teamed up with a psychologist who gives training to our whole team on coping strategies, resilience, self-


January 2017


awareness, and perception. We have found this to be incredibly useful, particularly as we have a relatively young team. “The benefits for our engagement with


customers have been considerable. Other teams in the business are now coming to these training sessions because they see the benefit for how they deal with each other.” Glen Walker, chief compliance officer


at Ascent Performance Group, added: “We have recently taken on a customer experience manager to look specifically at how we can engage better with customers. “Some of our research from customers


going on to our website shows that they are searching about us to understand who we are and what we do. So we are fully redeveloping our website, led by our customer experience team, to make sure that it meets all the customers’ needs. Because, as well as building on the self-serve and other capabilities, which are technology-led, we want to boil it back down to the customer- level. So when they go onto the website, having read the content, they view us as a professional company and will then go on to pick up the telephone to speak to us. “That led us on to consider how to garner


customer feedback and we have been trialing the use of a product to measure our levels of satisfaction and trust, which is not common in the collections industry. We have seen that we do get very good results. We want to publicise this extensively on our website, so that people can see, when they research us on our site, that we are a company that they should trust, and not be scared of.”


www.CCRMagazine.co.uk


Four-in-ten SMEs have suffered cashflow problems over the past two years, according to our research, and this figure rises to two- thirds among medium-sized firms with between 50 and 250 staff. One-in-seven of these firms are still


suffering liquidity problems and 12% either came close to, or became, insolvent. Small businesses do certainly recognise


the threat that cashflow problems can pose; nearly three-quarters say it is the biggest risk they face. On a sector basis, 35% of finance


and accounting firms report that they are affected by cashflow problems. Regionally, companies in the North East have been the worst hit by cashflow shortages. The biggest challenge caused by cashflow


shortages is paying suppliers, cited by 41% of business owners. This is followed by meeting debt repayments (30%), buying inventory (29%) and paying staff (24%). One-in-five (18%) business actually said


that they had lost contracts because of cashflow problems. Our research shows that most small firms


recognise the damage caused by cashflow problems but that does not guarantee their immunity. The worst case scenario is insolvency, but, in our experience, slow paying invoices are often to blame. As working capital and cashflow are, by


their very nature, dynamic, most traditional systems have failed to keep pace over the last few years.


John Wilde Managing director, Amicus Commercial Finance


Opinion


Recognising potential damage to cashflow


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