The importance of positive customer experiences in collections

Customers entering collections are facing stressful and difficult circumstances. It’s your responsibility to support these customers to financial stability through positive engagement at each step of their journey. That way, they will be more likely to engage with you, and it will be easier for you to help them.

In this article, we explore the value and importance of positive customer experiences in collections from a podcast conversation between Christina Fisher (Manager, Growth Marketing) of C&R Software and Joe Witkowski (Team Lead) of American Profit Recovery. 

Positive experiences lead to enhanced collection rates

Customers facing delinquency are going through difficult and stressful situations. Adding to this stress will not only make the situation worse, but will likely push them into becoming unresponsive.

Placing positivity at each step of the collections process paves the way to enhanced collections performance. A customer that feels supported and listened to is one that will engage with your team. This gives you the opportunity to collect reliable and up-to-date information to assign a treatment path that is likely to result in a resolution. Simply put, positive customers lead to positive results for you.

Personalization and compliance are crucial for positive collections experiences

In order to provide a positive collections experience, you need personalization systems in place. You need to accommodate their contact preference, know whether they want to self-resolve or chat with your team, and provide them with payment options that fit their situation. It all comes down to knowing what your customers need, when they need it.

On top of that, you need to ensure compliance with your interactions and customer data. Through communications, you need to adhere to the FDCPA (Fair Debt Collection Practices Act) and Regulation F and utilize the right channels. For data, you need to follow the GLBA (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act) so that they know their data is secure and private. Customers are far more likely to have a positive experience with you if they know their data is safe and private.

You need the technology to properly support your customers

In order to be confident in your compliance and provide customer-centric experiences, you need a configurable collections platform. By adopting one, you can seamlessly integrate cloud-native systems that personalize your customer experience and create positive experiences.

• Omnichannel communications - Configurable platforms store your customer’s contact preferences and integrate with your preferred omnichannel system. This accommodates their preference of contact as well as ensures compliance with communication regulations. 
• Self-service capabilities - Modern collections platforms support full self-service capabilities with personalized portals for each customer. This provides your users with the ability to resolve debt on their own terms, creating a positive experience.
• Automation - Automation can be integrated at each step of collections with a configurable platform. The arduous manual tasks for your team become automatic, speeding up the process for your customers and saving time for your team to commit to supporting them to financial stability.

Create positive collections experiences with C&R Software

Collections can be a difficult time for a lot of customers. To help them as well as enhance your collections performance, you should be creating positive experiences from start to finish of their journey.

C&R Software’s Debt Manager is designed to support customers through personalizing their experiences. It integrates with a variety of systems and tools to provide you with visibility of their situation and the ability to help them resolve their financial difficulties.

To find out more details about the conversation between Christina and Joe, watch the podcast here. To find out more about how Debt Manager can help you build positive collections experiences, contact a member of our team today.