Service efficiency measures
An important motto is emphasized throughout this website: the collection is first service. Therefore, measuring and monitoring the collection contact center with collection team efficiency KPIs used in customer service is important.
Is it possible to talk about customer satisfaction when talking about collection? The truth is, yes. A customer who loses his credit card and cancels it will be happy to receive a call from a collection centre (or service) asking him to provide an alternative means of payment. This call saves valuable waiting time and the customer’s busyness in searching for details, such as a customer number or a phone number to call the organization. You can conduct regular surveys and rate the level of customer satisfaction from 1 (not at all satisfied) to 10 (it was so fun to pay!). In the section dealing with the reporting system, we added this important index to the list of indices the credit and collection risk manager must monitor monthly.
It is also advisable to check over time a series of different parameters that have a direct effect on the level of customer satisfaction. Analyzing the survey results will make it possible to make corrections or update a work plan as required.
The quality of the service according to the customers
Customer satisfaction is measured in several ways: the number of complaints against the representative, the total number of service complaints as a percentage of the number of active customers, the speed of closing inquiries relative to other representatives, the rate of inquiries that end in actual collection, the number of repeat calls for the same treatment remember FTR), the number of customers who leave the organization after a bad experience with a representative comparing to other representatives. Also, we can audit the delegate’s work by using a Secret Shopper. Such undercover customers can assist in measuring the service quality and the conduct of an agent facing vulnerable or aggressive customers and in other tests, such as respecting identification procedures or various knowledge tests.
Employee turnover
The turnover rate in collection centers is relatively high compared to other centers, and the reason is clear – few people can bear stressful calls with distressed debtor customers for a long time. However, you can always try to reduce the level of employee turnover and thus save on extremely expensive recruitment and training costs. That is why it is recommended to monitor the turnover rate at the center over time.
Availability rate
Availability indicators quantify the availability of the hotline to handle customer inquiries. Some examples of availability indicators are the proportion of customers who answer within different waiting times, the percentage of customers who abandon while waiting for an answer, the average waiting time for an answer, the maximum waiting time in line, the percentage of customers leaving a voice mail or requesting a call back, percentage of collection calls answered at the customer care center (customers seeking to speak to anyone available).
Employee productivity and service efficiency
In addition, we would like to check the productivity of the employees and the efficiency of the service at the collection contact centre; the test should be done over time and include a comparison with the other centres in the organization. The following indices are proposed:
- How many calls does the representative answer per hour or per day?
- Number of incoming calls per hour or per day.
- Number of answered calls: Rate of answered calls out of total incoming calls. (Response percentage).
- Response percentage within 60 seconds.
- Outgoing calls per hour, per day.
- Number of callback requests.
- Number of calls transferred to the manager.
- How long the employee is on duty, how long he is off duty in order to perform tasks ((Offline, the rest of the time in relation to the total hours at the job. Availability time vs. break time. Clock-in and clock-out times.
Call duration
The length of the conversation is an empirical figure that cannot be determined arbitrarily in advance and is a critical and important element on which the standard is based. Every time you come to plan and calculate how many collection representatives are required to carry out a collection task, you need to know the average length of the call and, from there, determine the required amount of people.
Monitoring the length of the conversation regularly is recommended, and reducing its length will be defined as a goal within the department’s work plan – and will even be included as a possible parameter in the incentive system.
Talk time
Continuous monitoring over time of the average amount of time the representative actually spends on a phone call in relation to the total time he spends at the workplace, and this is to estimate the rate (percentage) of the effective time devoted to collection itself compared to handling paperwork and possibly wasted time.
We can compare the average of each representative to the average of the entire call center and to the average of the outstanding representatives who achieve the maximum number of “debt closings” in conversations. As with the length of the conversation, the time of speaking directly affects the number of agents needed.
Distribution of transfers from other contact centers
Other departments or other centers in the organization transfer customer calls to the collection centers: the service center, the technical support center, the customer recruitment center (telephone sales), sales managers, technicians, etc.
It is important to follow these transfers because their analysis can indicate problems or malfunctions in the organization’s work process and provide opportunities to improve organizational processes.
The cost of collection per agent
The collection cost can be calculated and divided by the number of collection workers at the center. This index will make it possible to monitor the center’s efficiency over time and will also make it possible to set efficiency goals. It is advisable to distinguish between the collection centers according to their activity: for example, the collection per employee from business customers will likely be much higher than the collection per employee from private customers.
Collection at every point of contact between the customer and the organization
Some debtor customers contact the organization every day to receive service or to purchase products or services, while the organization invests a lot of effort to locate them and demand that they pay their debt. That is why it is important that any representative who answers a customer with an outstanding debt can collect the money from him or at least transfer it to a collection representative during the call. It should be emphasized that this option is conditional on the type of client and its value to the organization since it is clear that when dealing with a large client of the organization applying for service, the service provision will not be conditioned on any advance payment.
Also, in large companies, the relevant contact person for collection purposes is not always the contact person who buys or needs the organization’s services, and such a process can harness the customer representative, who wishes to maintain good relations with the organization, to the collection efforts.
As mentioned, one of the questions that arises in this context is whether to condition the provision of the service on the payment of the debt. There is no unequivocal answer to this, and each organization will have to make the decision that best suits them.