It happens to all of us … we occasionally get stuck in a feedback loop on
a telephone collection call. Sometimes
it’s someone arguing in circles, sometimes it’s someone who doesn’t truly
understand what you are saying, and sometimes it’s someone who wants to keep
talking, even though you do not.
The first thing is to personally identify when a call is
going nowhere. Large call centers set
arbitrary call time caps like three minutes, but I believe it should be a
personal decision on whether a call has gone from productive to unproductive –
this could be after 30 seconds, or it could be after eight minutes, it really
depends on the circumstances.
Regardless, your precious resource is time, so you want to make sure you
aren’t wasting it.
Here are a few examples of an ‘endless call’ I’ve seen or
experienced over the years.
The rambler – a consumer or business
representative who takes an extreme amount of time to make their point. What they are saying may be valid, but it’s
going to take a long time to get there.
The crazed consumer – the consumer who is
agitated to the point of being irrational.
I actually deal with this scenario in detail here
The eternal optimist – the consumer or
business representative promises you payment arrangements, ad nauseum. Every single call you have with this consumer
consists of promises, in detail, of how they will resolve the account, but yet
nothing ever comes of it.
The arguer – this consumer or business
representative is completely convinced they should not have to resolve their
account, and singlemindedly want to convince you of the same, with facts,
emotion, or sheer willpower, and nothing can deter them from their goal of
swaying you to their opinion.
The staller – a person who wants to take
the time to explain in great detail why they aren’t resolving their
account. They may be in the process of
creating a lengthly explanation they 100% believe, or it could be a person
going into a level of detail that just isn’t necessary.
The distraught debtor – a person who has had bad
circumstances happen to them, and they want to share their stress with
you. This is completely different from
the crazed consumer who wants to rant and target you with their stress, the
distraught consumer is seeking an empathetic audience.
The lonely person – at the core of it, this
person is just happy to be speaking on the phone, and they want to tell you
about what their cat did this morning, or their health woes, or anything that
comes to mind.
In any case, there are a number of ways to identify these
sorts of calls and end the call – but the very first thing that needs to be
done identify when a call is going nowhere.
This is obviously a learned skill, but the collection agent should not
be on mental autopilot – as the call progresses, they should be self-evaluating
the situation and making smart decisions.
To help the collector, the first thing they need to do is
present the call properly even before they start talking. If you present your call as a factual
situation, without emotion, and offer the debtor an “A-B choice” of repayment
or consequences, you set the tone of the call, and direct their response to
either choosing to resolve the account or accept the consequences
displayed. When a call starts going off
the rails into left field, and the consumer wants to argue about the state of
health care in Canada, how unfair it is that they should be expected to resolve
this account after losing their job, or the problems they have suffered with
their colostomy bag this morning, you can always gently bring the call back to
the beginning, and diplomatically re-present the “A-B choice” without being
emotional or abrupt. This allows you to
end the call with the consequences, and get out of the call.
If that doesn’t work, either because the consumer won’t
listen or act reasonably, or they simply won’t stop talking to let you have a
word in edgewise, you may have to be slightly more abrupt. This should never, and I mean never, mean
yelling or getting emotional. If still
confronted with a difficult consumer who won’t end the call, you should speak
clearly and slowly with intent, advising the consumer of the consequences – even
if you have to speak over the consumer.
And then end the call.
Sometimes, it’s not just the consumer – often collection
agents will get trapped by their own patterns of behavior. You might be an optimist that wants to listen
to extensive promise payments, or an extremely polite person who doesn’t know
how to extricate yourself from a conversation with a shut-in cat person, or the
collector who is determined to win an argument with a consumer, even if it
takes 25 minute to do so. Watch for
personal behavior, or try to overcome it when it drags calls out repeatedly,
with no result.
If you are a fellow credit and collections industry
colleague and want to discuss collection techniques, or are a client who want
to discuss our approach to collecting debt, which we refer to as the APPRAISE
process, feel free to give us a call.
Blair DeMarco-Wettlaufer
Kingston Data and Credit
Cambridge, Ontario
226-946-1730
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