The Art of Successful Debt Collection

It’s no secret that some debt collectors are a great deal more successful than others. What is a bit of a mystery, however, is why? Why are some people so good at getting debtors to “pay up” while others just get hung up on over and over again?

While it’s likely that there will always be some mystery related to this question, a recent report from LinkedIn finds that debt collection agencies often (wisely) look for certain key traits in debt collectors, including the following:   

·         Perseverance and dedication; in other words, they don’t give up easily

·         Calm and collected, even under pressure

·         The ability to “brush off” personal hurts or insults

·         Independent

·         Goal-oriented

·         Self-motivated

·         Organized

·         Skilled at multi-tasking

The interesting thing about the above characteristics is that they’re the kind of thing that people either have or don’t have; there’s really not much middle ground, and, furthermore, they’re the kind of qualities that people CAN work to develop but that, for the most part, are simply inborn or not present.

This does not mean, however, that people who do not have all of those qualities cannot make good debt collectors. No, on the flip side, the amount of training, education, and experience a person has can really make a big difference and can also make up for lacking some of these skills innately. Important areas of training that can be beneficial to debt collectors include:

·         Customer service training

·         Education in company policies and procedures

·         Familiarity with claim research and other debt collection tasks

·         Skip tracing training

In truth, the answer to whether debt collectors are “made” or “built” is probably a little bit of both. Very few collectors have all of the inborn skills in the first list, and very few have all of the training and experience found in the second list. If, however, collectors can just have a little something from each list, then there’s a pretty good  chance that their natural and learned talents will come through and help turn them into prosperous debt collectors.