Five factors that define collector performance and how to make an artful collector.

June 24, 2013
Posted by: Phillip W. Duff
Category: Training

After more than 30 years in the collection business it’s easy to see the simplicity of this industry. Yet within its simplicity are many intricate parts there are five basic factors that define a collectors performance let me explain them to you.

Number of calls- the first and foremost that you have to teach a new collector is there are a certain number of calls required to meet the daily matrix. If you can teach a new collector to make 150 to 200 calls per day you will be on the way to having a successful collector.
Number of contacts- if a collector is making the proper number of calls per day the next thing you want to check on his to see how many contacts is he making. not just contact with responsible parties but also contact to third parties are people that may be able to provide further information on the location or a better number to reach the customer.
Number of Talk offs- once your collector is making a certain number of contacts per day we need to know how many of those are actually resulting in a talk off with a responsible consumer. The higher the number of Talk offs the higher the overall collection expectation should be.
Number of promises- what’s your collector is talking to responsible parties we need to see how many of these talk off’s result in promises to pay. Collector who has a high number of tacos and a low number of promises obviously shows an opportunity for training.
Dollars collected- many agency owners spend their time worrying about this first yet it is the least important of the five. If you have properly trained your collector to make the proper number of calls resulting in the proper number of contacts resulting in the proper number of talk off’s which resulted in the proper number of promises the dollars collected will come.

The biggest problem people have with this process is they want to do it backwards they first want to know how much money was collected then they go backwards to figure out how many promises that person had they seldom go pass that to check on the talk off the context of the number of calls but it all begins with the proper number of calls being made per day.

What you have spent many many hours training your collector to meet these five requirements in a clinical fashion then you can begin to teach them how to become better. Once your collector has mastered the process of making enough calls, contacts, talk offsl resulting in a promises you can begin to teach him the artistic portion of debt collection. Only when your collector has mastered the five factors above can you begin to teach him the art of collection.

A collector who does not understand the five factors above can never be an artful collector they will never be that number one employee. Spend the time to teach your staff the process of collection before you teach them the art of collection.