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home | Collection Tips | Collection Tips Archives

Collection Tips continued

Displaying Matches 2 thru 16 of 100 Found. BACK NEXT

Collecting After the Holidays
Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy Holidays! Each year, from Thanksgiving through the New Year, people tend to be in a more festive, optimistic, cheerful, and giving mood. This is all well and good, and it would be nice if the "festive, optimistic, and cheerful" spirit remained year-round. However, the "giving" component, while well intentioned, can come back to bite a lot of people after the first of the year.

"We deal with delinquencies throughout the year, but they become more frequent from December through February," notes an Ohio-based mortgage collection manager, who asked not to be identified. "Historically, January is the month when people start trying to recover from their December spending."

With this understanding, the department implements a concerted effort to keep borrowers on track during these sometimes lean times. "Our goal is to stem the tide of problems in January and February, so that borrowers don't end up as foreclosure candidates later on," he explains. This article looks at their strategy for coping with tougher collections after the holidays; how they support collectors, including extra incentives they offer. . . . keep reading

Too Aggressive Collecting?
A battered veteran of the fiercely competitive computer market, this Credit & Collections Manager friend of ours is an ardent advocate of letting customers know exactly what payment performance is expected and of confronting delinquents immediately. This article details how she handled a complaint from a customer's accounting manager about supposed aggressive and inappropriate collections by one of her collectors. . . . keep reading

Just Asking for Money
What collecting? It's merely asking for money that's owed to your organization. Should anyone be uncomfortable about that? Not according to David Sher, CEO of AmSher Receivables Management (Birmingham, Ala.).To become comfortable, he says, use the ASK model:

Attitude. "Realize that it is OK to ask for money that is owed to you," he says. "A lot of business owners are uncomfortable asking."

Speed. "Collection is urgent," he adds. "The longer you put it off, the less likely it is that you will be paid."

Knowledge. Finally, successful collections depends on your knowledge of credit policies and appropriate customer contact.

To put the ASK model into practice, Sher recommends following the six-step AVENUE model: . . . keep reading

Donuts: Your Secret Weapon?
While you can establish strong and healthy relationships with customers over the phone, you can do even more in person. One experienced credit and . . . keep reading

Customizing Collection Strategies on Business Credit Cards
Business credit card issuers deal with a wide variety of businesses in diverse industries. Furthermore, some of these businesses may be relatively new while others may be seasonal, either of which present specific challenges. So the same collection strategy doesn't work for all. That's why Advanta Bancorp. (Spring House, Pa.), an affiliate of Advanta Corporation, diversifies its collection strategies to match cardholders' businesses.

what resources Advanta uses to determines what part of its lifecycle a business is in
When the late fee is charged
How delinquencies are measured according to risk and what collection strategies they use depending on the risk
variables used by their call center predictive dialers
strategies used to script calls

. . . keep reading

Small Claims Court--A Do-It-Yourself Guide
You've heard all the promises. You've offered workable solutions. You've given all the proper warnings and issued all the proper Fair Debt Collection Practices information. Still, you haven't been paid and your patience is at its end. What's your next step? If the amount owed falls within your state's guidelines, you could take the debtor to small claims court. Here's a complete run-down of what goes on in small claims court and how you can do it yourself without hiring a lawyer... . . . keep reading

Reflections of a Part-Time Collector
By Gregory Dennis
For the third summer in a row, I have had the opportunity to work for my father as a collection specialist. Some of the things that I have learned about collections are:

there are some fantastic observations and techniques in this article as this college student is unburdened by years of "experience" and instead gives us a fresh look and some important "truisms" about collections...

. . . keep reading

The Importance of Collections Focus
No matter how long I work in commercial collections, one aspect of this job will continue to amaze me. It is the fact that some collectors cannot, do not, or will not, when contacting delinquent accounts, differentiate between customers owing a few hundred dollars and customers with past due balances many times larger than that. Like most business issues, the old 80/20 rule applies to commercial collections. 80% of the past due balances involve 20% of your customers. I tell my collectors to . . . keep reading

Intuitive Collections
"When collectors are talking with debtors, they need to pay attention not only to what the debtors are saying, but to how the debtors seem to feel about what they are saying. contends Leonard Sklar, a former collection agency owner and now a professional collections consultant based in Redwood City, Calif.). "Collectors who fail to deal with debtor emotions rarely ever reach the root of the problem. Key points covered:

why most collectors stay too long with an account, and why this trait hurts productivity
what the top goal (other than collecting the money, of course) should be in a collection call
the surprising way he reccommends helping collectors be more effective in getting to the root cause of debtors' problems

. . . keep reading

"Have you been trying to reach me?"
How's this for an opening line for a collection call? "Have you been trying to reach me?" Ummm, yeah, right, you might be thinking... My past due customers sure aren't beating down the door trying to reach me. What a ridiculous question! On a strictly literal level, that is probably true. . . . keep reading

The Four Types of Responses Collectors Can Expect
New collectors in training at Windham Associates (Fairport, New York) are taught that there are four general types of responses to expect from the debtors they contact. . . . keep reading

Avoiding Mistakes
Even though it has been years since this credit manager was a full-time collector, she tries to make at least a dozen collection calls a day. In particular, she tries to handle some of the more seriously delinquent accounts personally to make certain that the right amount of pressure is being brought to bear to motivate customers to remit payment as quickly as possible. Her goal is to be assertive but not aggressive, and to be insistent and persistent about getting paid quickly. Here's an interesting situation she ran into that taught her some good lessons about thoroughness in collecting, along with the three key principles of collecting that she became "reaquainted" with. . . . keep reading

Excuses! Excuses!
The key to handling customer excuses for not paying is having some well-thought-out responses to them, according to the credit manager for an international moving and relocation firm. "Such responses will often catch a customer off guard and free up payments that might otherwise take additional weeks or months to collect," he says. Here are seven common excuses and ways you can get from ruse to payment: . . . keep reading

Knowing When to Say When: 25 Signs You Should Place an Account For Collection
There is no simple answer to when an account should be placed for collection, but the more of the following statements that are true, the more appropriate it is to forward the account quickly to a third party... . . . keep reading

Defusing Delinquents' Anger
There are two main reasons customers react to collection calls with anger. But more important than those two reasons is what you do about that anger; how you and your staff react to it. One's natural reaction is to become angry yourself, but that would not be productive. Read on to learn:

Five specific steps to take to control the collection call (and your own emotions) when you find yourself dealing with an angry customer.
A right and a wrong way to phrase your questions
Coping methods: Five suggestions for managing stress after the call
Ways managers can stay on top of the stress experienced by their collection staff
Telltale signs that a collector is experiencing a stressful call
Ways collection managers can help cope deal with the aftermath of a stressful call

. . . keep reading

Displaying Matches 2 thru 16 of 100 Found BACK NEXT

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