A collection contact center is a dedicated contact center whose main purpose is to receive and/or make calls to debtor customers, with the emphasis placed on collection efficiency.
What distinguishes a collection center from the collection department? The collection department manages the collection activity from end to end – from the customer’s entry into debt to the transfer of it to legal treatment and the deletion of uncollected debts. A collection center is a certain part of the collection process that works with customers in outgoing or incoming calls and does not manage all of the end-to-end collection activity.
How is a collection contact center different from a financial contact center? The financial contact center provides an answer to all of the customer’s financial requirements, with an emphasis on customer service (including account inquiries and credits), while the collection center is only a certain part of the collection process.
Why do you even need a collection contact center? The answer to this question is not trivial and sometimes the answer will be that there is no need for a collection contact center. In fact, the real question is: is excessive specialization required beyond the skills, knowledge and systems that the service representatives have? If the accounting for the products sold is simple and the customer’s balance to be paid is displayed simply in the operational system used by the customer service, there is no obstacle for the customer service in the first line to serve as a collection contact center and in that way facilitate the “customer experience”. Therefore, we will need a collection contact center when there are:
• A large number of customers
• Need for telephone outbound calls
• Dedicated collection systems that are not available in the customer service department
• Complex accounts that require specialization of the representatives
• Some of the customers do not have automated methods of payment
In organizations dealing with a large number of customers, the collection contact center is of great importance. The size and quality of this contact center depends mainly on the organization’s products and services, the composition of its customers, the organization’s credit and collection policy, as well as the market or industry in which it operates.
The establishment and management of a collection contact center presents us with several requirements that sometimes contradict each other because in order to serve the organization and its customers, a collection contact center needs to:
- To provide good service to the organization’s customers
- To retain customers and prevent churn
- Be assertive and take care of timely collection (of the organization’s funds)
- Prevent the customers from entering into the arrears process by preventive treatment
- Prevent the accumulation of debts and delays in customer care
- Minimize the number of clients who require legal proceedings
- Act like a service center but serve the purposes of the finance department
To avoid favouring one goal over the other, we must establish a set of procedures and metrics that will lead the operating teams to achieve the desired results, under the organization’s policy.
Diagram 43 Flow-chart of a collection process using a collection center