This week on Collecting Thoughts, our host Christina speaks with Mitch DeCoeur, President and CEO at O&R Utilities Employees Federal Credit Union. Mitch shares the member relationship-building strategies he has learned over 20 years in the collections industry and dives into how organizations can stay on top of the repayment hierarchy. Christina and Mitch also touch on the latest developments in AI and how it can enhance the effectiveness of human-powered connections.
Read on to learn more from their discussion.
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Guest Profile
Name: Mitch DeCoeur
Profession: President and CEO at O&R Utilities Employees Federal Credit Union
Find Mitch on LinkedIn.
Episode's Key Points
'Jack of all trades'
With roughly $28 million in assets, O&R Utilities Employees Federal Credit Union is a much smaller operation than the two previous credit unions on Mitch's resume. Since joining as President and CEO in 2023, Mitch has become a jack of all trades.
Everybody has their hands in just about everything, which has really been good for my growth and knowledge and further understanding of overall how a credit union runs.
Day-to-day relationship building
The small team at O&R means that in day-to-day operations, Mitch answers the phone and sits down in the branch to talk with members.
That direct contact has allowed him to build relationships and inform credit union members about the various benefits of their membership beyond loans, such as credit score monitoring and financial education.
So really trying to let them know the full-fledged information that they have at their fingertips from being a member of the credit union.
Mitch says his team utilizes a quarterly newsletter and weekly emails to help remind members of those added benefits. He explained how it helps that the financial education the credit union offers is provided through a trusted partner organization.
That tends to put more people at ease when they know that not only the credit union has vetted this other company, and that we trust them, but that the information is not going to come back to us and have us use that information for any purposes whatsoever. It's just a perk for being a member of the credit union.
The top of the repayment hierarchy
Mitch explains his collections philosophy and how he focuses on relationship building as a strategy for staying on top of the repayment hierarchy. He works with delinquent credit union members to try to solve their overarching problems rather than opting for short-term solutions.
That approach builds rapport with members, which, in combination with the added benefits that O&R regularly reminds members to take advantage of, helps keep Mitch's team at the top of the repayment hierarchy.
Mitch encourages O&R collectors to turn what can be a difficult conversation with a delinquent member into a relationship-building opportunity, an approach he learned as a collector in the early years of his career.
We're not going to berate them. We're not going to belittle them. We're not going to be disrespectful to them. They're a partner of ours, and we need to handle that in accordance to that. That was the way that I treated my members when I was a collector … Now as president and CEO of an organization, it's the same concept. It's just in every conversation that we have.
Mitch finds that going above and beyond with delinquent customers leads to word-of-mouth recommendations that he values more highly than direct marketing.
The secret to success is just having that friendly voice … and putting them at ease, and really talking to them as an individual and okay, let's delve deeper into why you're in trouble, why you're having issues? Or why did you come into the branch today? Maybe you just came in to get a loan. But let me talk to you a little bit further and really solve your full problem.
When it comes to artificial intelligence, Mitch says that AI isn't as urgent a priority or relevant a tool for a credit union as small as O&R. He adds that while he sees how AI can fit the needs of a larger credit union, for example helping with scaling and marketing, he still goes back to the importance of relationship building with members.
At the end of the day, no technology is going to replace human contact. And to me, human contact is everything.
Learn More
Visit the C&R Software blog to learn more about finance, software, and collections industry topics from insiders and experts like Mitch.
Stay tuned for future episodes of Collecting Thoughts, where host Christina dives deep into more interviews with leaders from across the debt recovery and software world.
