What comes to mind when you think of a credit and collections call center? It's no surprise if you conjure up images of repo men knocking on your door or sounds of harassing phone calls.
But you might want to rethink those visions. Today's credit and collections call centers are handling a combination of inbound and outbound calls. And companies are quickly realizing that the best results come from providing the best customer service, whether making outbound collection calls or taking inbound customer service calls.
Keeping a positive customer service spin on collections is a challenging feat if you consider that agents have a tough job to do - collecting money from debtors.
We spoke to seven call centers for this article. Some of them provide support for customers who are seeking credit and some collect from customers who haven't paid their debts. These centers prove that they have a lot in common with traditional customer service call centers.
MCM Capital Group
MCM Capital Group, headquartered in Hutchinson, KS, acquires and serves credit card debtors from companies that include MasterCard and Visa. These are debts that the credit card companies consider uncollectible.
MCM operates two collections centers located in Hutchinson and Phoenix, AZ. The Hutchinson center employs 51 collectors and the Phoenix center employs 234 collectors. The Phoenix site opened two years ago and Jack Craven, executive VP and COO of MCM Capital Group, says these centers have since grown dramatically.
The collections center operates seven days a week from 7:30 am to 7:30 pm MST, Monday through Thursday and during limited hours on Friday through Sunday. "On an average day we call over 100,000 accounts," says Craven. When agents are not able to reach a live person, they leave messages on answering machines and these outbound collection calls lead to inbound calls. The Phoenix center's inbound call volume ranges from 70,000 to 80,000 calls a month.
In October 1999, after updating the center's existing phone switch, upgrading its network and installing PCs on agents' desktops, the center installed Davox's (Westford, MA) Unison 4.0 campaign management system. "Within the first full month on the system we increased the dollars collected per collector by 19%," says Craven. "Now agents only need to point and click to collect."
Craven credits Unison for much of the center's increase in productivity. Before installing Unison, the center was using another vendor's dialer and agents were only equipped with dumb terminals. "All [the dialer] did was dial out phone numbers, so our collectors still had to deal with busy signals, no answers and disconnects," he says. "Unison assures that collectors will reach a live party. It eliminates the frustration of having to reschedule calls for a later time."
Craven also credits the dialer with some other improvements that the center has seen. "From the fourth quarter of 1999 to the first quarter of 2000, our collections per collector have improved 48%, and average monthly collections have gone up 26%."
Currently, operators answer inbound calls, and by looking at each customer's record, operators direct calls to the agent who handled the account last. Within this year, the center plans to implement Unison's Inbound Call Director, which routes inbound phone calls and provides agents with screen pops.
MCM's full-time compliance group monitors collectors' phone conversations with agents. The compliance group monitors collectors' live conversations to ensure that they are following the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The compliance group also monitors agents' PC screens. The company is considering purchasing quality monitoring software to record and save calls.
A dedicated training staff guides new hires through a four-week training program which familiarizes collectors with MCM's policies and procedures. The new hires also start to handle calls from customers while they are still in training. "Once collectors have met certain standards and graduate to the floor, they have already been working on several accounts," says Craven.
"When we hire new collectors, we don't necessarily look for people who are experienced collectors, but rather people with good negotiating, listening and sales skills," Craven explains. "Collections is sales; you've got to be able to sell someone your point of view and convince them that it is in their best interest to pay you. It's important for agents to listen to customers and be empathetic to their situation," he says.
MCM also realizes the competition for skilled collectors. "In the Phoenix area there are a lot of call centers, including American Express and First USA. There are also a lot of telemarketing firms, so the demand for collectors is very high," says Craven.
In response to this demand the center has recently arranged for on-site day care. "This has gone over huge and is one of the best things that we could have done for retention and morale," says Craven. "We surveyed our staff members and the support for day care was overwhelming," he says.
Time Warner
Time Warner Communications of Rochester, NY, offers cable and high-speed Internet service to about 300,000 customers in a six-county area surrounding Rochester.
The credit and collections department operates as a separate business unit from the division's 24-hour call center.
"We have two functions on the outbound dialing side," says Laurie Ozzello, manager of the credit and collections department. Ten agents handle credit and collection calls, which involve resolving customers' delinquent accounts. Six agents make telemarketing calls to sell cable or Internet service to new customers and upgrade existing customers' services. "We also make outbound calls to confirm the next day's installation appointments and follow-up calls to ensure customers are satisfied with their service," says Ozzello.
The credit and collections department operates Monday through Thursday from 8 am to 7 pm; Friday from 8 am to 5 pm EST; and limited hours on Saturday. On average, the credit and collections department makes about 5,500 outbound calls and answers approximately 4,000 inbound calls a week.An ACD routes inbound calls to the first available agent.
The collections department uses TeleDirect International's (Scottsdale, AZ) Liberation 6000 predictive dialer. "We utilize the system's scripting and all of our reports are obtained through the system," says Ozzello. "We started the upgrade during the third week of December and we were completely up and running by the first week of January."
A visit to one of TeleDirect International's existing customers helped the collections department make its decision. "We had the opportunity to visit Century Communications in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and I got the chance to talk with actual users of Liberation 6000," says Ozzello. "This was very important to us. We want to make sure that our users are happy."
