Sensitivity, personalization, and tech can achieve better collections

Once the COVID-19 pandemic passes and the various types of debt reprieves outlined in the CARES Act expire, businesses will be faced with how to collect monies owed to them. If what many economic experts are predicting occurs, companies will have the challenge of trying to collect in a rocky economic landscape.

A recent article published by The Financial Brand suggests a “better blending of human and digital techniques and revamped operations approaches” will be helpful to those tasked with collecting during and after the coronavirus pandemic passes.

Sensitivity when pursuing collections

Pursuing collections or recovery in an economic downturn is going to take a level of sensitivity. To yield positive results, lenders will want to create a customer experience that includes empathy. This will mean finding a level of balance between empathy and the need to collect debts owed. In other words, being less authoritative and more supportive while simultaneously finding the right equilibrium.

Offer personalized treatment

All debtors will have a different situation. Some will be customers who are in habitual and predictive debt. These will be the hardest to collect from. Others will only be struggling due to circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and are more likely to pay what they are owed.

• Assess each account and identify which customers are likely to pay and which won’t.
• Listen and respect each customer and as they’re talking, try to gauge their financial struggles and willingness to pay their debt.
• Offer customers different repayment options that fit within their current financial means.

Having difficult, but meaningful, conversations with customers can go a long way towards achieving positive results for all parties involved. Be an active listener and then offer a response such as, “This must be difficult, but here is what we can do….” Many customers, especially those in delinquency due to COVID-19, will be more likely to respond positively.

The bottom line, lenders who offer quality customer services are the ones who will likely be paid first and recover a higher percentage of the debt owed to them.

Using technology to assist

To further aid the ability to collect debt, technology can significantly increase achieving a positive result. MicroBilt’s suite of recovery and skip tracing tools can give you rapid and current data with ease, enabling you to prioritize and successfully track down debtors.

• Account segmentation
• Skip tracing
• Asset identification
• Monitoring to track changes

Technology can make the collection process less cumbersome which, in turn, opens up the resources to have a stronger ability to pursue collection from a larger number of accounts.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has created a lot of economic uncertainty, at some point, collections will need to resume if businesses are going to survive the pandemic and any economic downturn that emerges once the pandemic passes. However, how businesses approach this process will likely determine success or failure in collecting on past-due accounts.

If you’d to learn more about MicroBilt’s suite of recovery and skip tracing tools, contact us today. Our business service consultants can help to create a customized solution to aid you in your collection and recovery efforts.