As the demands on firms and credit managers escalates there has been an increasing reliance on the ‘power diallers’, either the standard form or pre-dictive, diallers – but is this the answer?

This could be what is happening to Debt Recovery Agents who boast new and expanded premises, increased workforce and ‘at least 3 calls made before letter before action’. But are the ‘agents’ intentions solely focused on recovering your cash or to make as many calls as possible in order to progress straight to LBA and litigation and possibly more unnecessary costs.

A power dialler takes away the human face of Collections and Debt Recovery and often results in a poor service. So what do you choose – quality or quantity? Those outsourced agencies using these systems claim increased call rates from 40 to 110 (or more) calls a day, but how successful are these calls? Another claim is that they are themselves more profitable because of this system, but at whose expense?…the clients?

True, they take away the ‘should I hang up’ scenario, from the collector, but they don’t take away other anomalies such as, ‘the wrong number’ or ‘the answer-phone’. Nor do they stop the messages from the debtors’ communication supplier (which you will all be familiar with): “I’m sorry this number does not accept calls…” or “It has not been possible to connect….”.

Once the call has been connected the collector has little or no time to view the account and become familiar with any previous contacts, whereas more reputable, and professional firms know the history of the person they are calling, can distinguish between traditional debtor types such as ‘The Delayer’, ‘The Genuine’, ‘The Cash-Flow Problem’ and ‘The Knocker’ and can subsequently prepare themselves in advance on the best possible course of action and line of questioning before making the call.

There have also been several cases of people reporting nuisance calls to the police – the culprit turns out to be a power dialler and has resulted in further action being taken - not something you want your company associated with!

To be most effective in debt recovery you need to accurately identify the debtor, use a combination of calls and letters (standard 3 pre-legal letters) before it gets processed through to legal action. But don’t ask me, give your collection agent a call and re-affirm what their method of collection is and hopefully you won’t get the response….’It has not been possible to connect your call……’.