Debt collections carried out at an early stage are very often the most beneficial outcome for both parties.
Our collection service for early stage arrears can help to avoid the issuing of statutory CCA Default Notices (for regulated agreements) or worsening arrears that may otherwise stretch beyond rehabilitation.
Key aims and objectives
- Significantly improve customer engagement
- Enrich data ensuring capture of updated details, employment and affordability
- Improve cure rates and rehabilitation rates
- Reduce Default Notice issuance
- Fewer terminated agreements
- Reduce impairment and improve profit aligned with good outcomes
Seeking the right resolution for customers
Agreements that end by default or other early termination do not always achieve the most financially desirable outcome for lenders and, in many cases, their customers. Defaulted accounts, especially if they do not show as cured on a customer's credit file, will also normally result in short, medium and longer-term adverse financial consequences for customers. It is in both parties interest to seek the right resolution.
Best customer outcomes
We know that what drives lenders to succeed is an understanding that the best outcome for them is aligned to the best outcome for their customers.
Pro-active customer engagement
A common challenge when assisting customers in financial difficulty is in achieving pro-active engagement, allowing lenders to assist those customers through short-medium term challenges without unnecessarily defaulting or terminating agreements.
Multi-channel contact
Our solutions assist lenders in maintaining customer engagement during the early stages of arrears experiences.
- White labelled or disclosed multi-channel contact centre expertise can either compliment, champion-challenge existing processes, or provide a complete outsourced solution
- Utilising dialler, two-way-SMS, email, mail, customer portal and web-chat channels
- API integration between our own state-of-the-art internal systems or working directly from a lender's own cloud-hosted platform
- Blended resourcing solutions enabling flexibility of seats to deal with peaks and troughs in account activity throughout monthly, seasonal or yearly peaks, or dedicated ring-fenced resources adapted to an individual lender's requirements
Identifying changing circumstances
Although our primary aim in customer reconnection cases is to cure or rehabilitate accounts to agreement terms, we recognise that this will not always be possible. Often due to a change of circumstances, there will be instances where customers no longer have the ability to maintain the financial obligations of the agreement, and where the best mutual outcome is for an asset to be recovered. We work collaboratively with lenders and their customers to facilitate the best outcomes.
For those customers who have become disengaged with the process, our reconnection service allows lenders to use our nationwide field services to reconnect with customers and attempt to rehabilitate defaulted accounts.
Another method of engaging with customers is the rehabilitation of delinquent accounts, subject to affordability assessments. This enables both parties to avoid defaulting accounts in favour of reaching mutually acceptable short or medium-term payment arrangements to recover the outstanding amounts.
Data analytics and insight
Our added-value data analytics and insight services additionally enrich and update key contact/employment/personal circumstances data to aid future customer engagement.
Your main contact:
Andy is Managing Director of Equivo’s Collections & Field Division has responsibility for operations and service delivery for collections activity across the business. Andy always challenges standard industry practice while keeping fully abreast of regulatory requirements, beliefs that are core to Equivo's operation.
