allowing you to identify credit risk quickly.
You do not have a holistic
view of your customer
Debt collections don’t start at delinquency.
Instead, they are part of a broader
customer lifecycle which starts with
admitting customers or opening a new
credit account and continues throughout
the relationship.
But fulfilling this ideal of customer-
centric collections requires insight. Being
smarter and savvier with data will become
a necessity. Competing against these data-
led giants will mean moving past outdated
wisdom and disparate technology.
Like in financial sector, instead of one
system for mortgages, one system for
personal banking and another for credit
card debt, you can consolidate a customer’s
debt profile into one database. That
provides you with a single view, making
world class customer service easier to
provide.
You do not have a
collections strategy
As a credit manager, you will be under big
pressure to squeeze more value out of debt
recovery efforts. That means improved
efficiency and less time heading down
preventable dead ends.
You need a strategy. And while you might
be able to sketch out a plan on paper,
bringing the strategy to life is a whole
different beast. That is where software
comes in.
Debt collections software facilitates your
plans and strategies. It doesn’t create a
strategy as much it makes it possible to
plan, measure and rollout processes across
your entire collections team.
You do not know how
effective your current
collections strategy is.
Testing, testing, testing! The value of
monitoring your strategies and customer
behavior cannot be understated.
Testing doesn’t have to be costly and
laborious. Great debt collections software
makes a/b testing simple, allowing for
68 MAL30/19 ISSUE
As a credit manager, you will be under
big pressure to squeeze more value out
of debt recovery efforts. That means im-
proved efficiency and less time heading
down preventable dead ends. You need
a strategy. And while you might be able
to sketch out a plan on paper, bringing
the strategy to life is a whole different
beast. That is where software comes
in. Debt collections software facilitates
your plans and strategies.
constant tinkering. Do those aged over 50
respond better to phone calls or letters?
Do women prefer SMS messages? The
questions are endless, and the answers
to these questions should inform your
strategy now and in the future.
Testing, measuring and refining is a
core piece of functionality for an ideal
software, and it’s crucial in improving your
debt collections function in-house. If you
don’t know what works and what doesn’t,
an investment in debt software should be
on your radar.
You cannot quickly and easily make
changes to the parameters of your existing
system
Perhaps you already have a “Customer
Relationship Management’ (CRM) policy
in place, and that is how the organization
has always managed your collections
process. But there is a catch: a CRM or a
core Debtors module has knockout power
but it is also inflexible.
more efficient.
If Bad Debts are steadily
increasing
Across the world, Kenya included,
non-performing loans are on the up.
Technology is an easy way to be more
efficient in your collections. Tech allows
the organization to adapt its approach to
individual cases, pursuing different types
of actions depending on the situation. This
not only means fewer bad Debts but also
an ability to help struggling customers get
back on track.
You need to start thinking
customer-first
While impromptu workarounds and hacks
are possible, changes in laws, regulations
and customer needs will eventually require
the CRM system to be refigured or
redesigned - both of which require costly
third-party coding. Collection is always a customer service
challenge. The process should not be
adversarial. It is precisely when a customer
is struggling that they need your help the
most. No one wants to be in debt. And
by relying on an old-fashioned model of
collections, organizations often do not
empower consumers. Collections software
flips this equation with self-service
portals, transforming debt recovery into a
collaborative process.
In some ideal Software, making alterations
is simple, relying on drag-and-drop
capabilities, allowing users to quickly
update information, change templates or
explore new strategies. So the cost of use
remains low while your teams become A self-service tool allows customers
to take control since they can resolve
obligations on their own time, in their
preferred way. There’s no need to chase
or press a customer, all they require is a
chance to fix it themselves.