Customer-friendly collection: focus on these three pillars

When you look at the latest, most important developments in optimizing payment and collection processes, you see two interesting trends:

• Customer-friendly collection, or socially responsible collection.
• Further automating and personalizing payment and collection processes.

Partly 'thanks to' these trends, more and more institutions, companies and collection agencies are taking a more critical look at their payment and collection processes. Maybe you are currently working on that too. In this article you can read how you can make payments and collections more customer-friendly, personal and automated, at lower operational costs. I focus on three important pillars: digitalization, personalization and digital self-service.

Customer-friendly collection and further digitization

These are uncertain times. The effects of the situation in Ukraine and the aftermath of the corona crisis are reflected in scarcity, which leads to rising prices and high inflation. The number of outstanding invoices and payment arrears is expected to continue to rise.

But price increases are of course not the only reason why payment arrears arise. Age, (employment) situation and financial position are all factors that determine the occurrence of payment problems. All in all, this seems like a golden age for a debt collection agency. After all, more backlogs mean more orders...

Change in approach to debtors
At the same time, we see increasing competition in the debt collection industry. Mainly based on price, but also on the method of approaching debtors. A development such as socially responsible collection leads to a change in approach and therefore process. Customer-friendly collection, such as friendly language and a flexible payment arrangement, is becoming increasingly important.

Don't miss the digitization drive
In addition, digitalization is taking off, especially after the corona crisis, and that requires changes in the IT infrastructure. It is therefore important to distinguish yourself in the market. Both in terms of digitalization and customer-friendly collection.

But how do you do that, set up automated, customer-friendly payment and collection processes? There are three pillars that form the basis for being truly distinctive: digitalization, personal contact and digital self-service.

Customer-friendly collection is done via your debtors' preferred channel.

Pillar 1: digitize to distinguish yourself

Digitalization is a prominent pillar to distinguish yourself from your competitors. The introduction of PSD2, for example, makes it possible to use data from the client about the debtor. Using this data in your processes offers advantages such as:

• personal approach
• adapted language per target group, interaction on different channels (print, e-mail, chat, self-service portal).
• recording relevant information for accountability to management or your client.
• saving costs. Automation reduces human actions.

And contrary to what is generally considered a long and expensive process, digitalization is easy to achieve with existing ones solutions. I will tell you more about this in our webinar: Personal and customer-friendly invoicing and collection. The webinar and accompanying sheets can be found for free:

Pillar 2: Personalize the payment and collection process

Personalization is the second important pillar to achieve your goals: getting paid on time, but retaining your (satisfied) customers. Takes many forms. You can:

• communicate in a customer-friendly manner via your debtors' preferred channel. Think of print, e-mail, chat and self-service portals.
• prepare all communications in your client's corporate identity or your own corporate identity. For example an invoice.
• address different target groups within your customer base in various ways, in multiple languages.

Have you thought about video yet?

A channel that is increasingly being used is personalized interactive video. For example, with personal, interactive videos you can help debtors enter into a payment arrangement or other suitable solution. The video then guides the debtor in paying the claim directly via, for example, iDEAL, or provides specific target group-oriented information to prevent payment problems in the future.

Pillar 3: Give your customer the option of digital self-service

People are getting used to self-service. They arrange everything online, from purchases to investing and changing address details. There are many forms of digital self-service that you can implement to make it easier for the debtor to make a payment or successful collection. For example, automatically agreeing on a payment arrangement via a personal, interactive video or a conversational chatbot. This way you are available to your debtor 24/7 and, because many issues can be resolved through self-service, your colleagues can focus on more specific cases that require extra attention. For example, when a payment threatens to lead to legal proceedings.

Use of chatbots

With a conversational chatbot – unlike a 'normal' chatbot – you can help the debtor directly from the context without asking unnecessary questions. For example, via a direct link from the email sent to the debtor or via a QR code on a printed letter. The chatbot is intelligent, knows your debtor and knows what options are available to enter into a (standard) payment arrangement. There is a good chance that you will get paid on time.

Use of voice bots

For the debtor who prefers to contact us by telephone to arrange a standard appointment, you can consider using a voicebot. The following applies to all options: if the system cannot resolve the issue, your debtor must always be able to be transferred to a live employee.

Customer-friendly collection: no longer a thing of the future

All the solutions described above seem like they are in the future, but are already available and are already being deployed. I understand that you did not set up personal, omnichannel payment and collection processes in one week. I therefore advise you to work step by step towards the desired situation via a clear roadmap, supported by solid business cases: digital, personal and relevant customized collection. You will see that a lot is already possible with existing systems. Do you have questions? Please feel free to contact us.

* The translations on this website are provided by G-Translate from Dutch