Collection operations base their high recovery rates on models allowing optimal utilization of collectors’ time. Since the person to person call is almost the only available too to convert debtors into paying customers, every minute is important. It’s obvious that self-service portals cannot bridge that gap on their own, because they won’t capture intent to pay in exactly the same way.
While we may never be able to move away from making phone calls, the user experience in the collection process can and should be adapted to use behavioral cues to capture payment intent. Thinking of the set of tools as a spectrum, with a high touch phone call on one end and a low touch self-service portal on the other, modern technology allows us to maintain contact with the customer more consistently and longer than before. The key, as discussed in the webinar embedded below, is in designing the experience to use the way we think to capture that intent.
In this webinar about behavioral economics in debt collection, we explore the mechanisms that drive decision in humans, and how to work with these mechanism to identify when a customer is ready to pay, or able and just needs a small nudge. These mechanisms are in the heart of every effective online experience, and they are explained here with their relevance to the debt collection process, with real life examples.