Collection Industry to Focus on Compliance and Customer Experience in 2012

Firstsource Solutions, a collection management solutions company, conducted a survey of 100 debt buying industry executives in February 2102. The respondents included executives across the debt buying industry such as major credit card issuers, banking and payments professionals, and collection companies. Improving the customer experience and compliance with laws regarding collections will be their priorities in 2012. This was probably the result of the announcement that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was targeting the debt collection industry.

Highlights

Seventy percent of debt industry executives said they expect that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will impose significant changes on the collections industry in the next year.

Forty percent stated that these changes will greatly influence their focus on implementing compliance controls across their organizations.  Almost 75 percent of responders said addressing compliance-related issues will be the top priority for the industry in 2012.

More than 60 percent stated that their organizations would increase the number of training programs for collectors to sharpen their skills in dealing with customers during the entire collection process.

More than 80 percent of respondents said delivering a high quality customer experience is just as important as collecting.

Nearly 75 percent agreed that social media is useful in the overall collections process.  More than 85% of executives said they use social media to monitor online customer conversations.

Nearly 30 percent said the best way to deal with negative customer feedback online was to determine the specific comments which warranted a response.

“We’re seeing a real sea of changes in the industry in terms of making the customer the number one priority,” says Tim Smith, senior vice president, Banking Financial Services & Insurance at Firstsource. “Our findings show that collection executives are making customer experience just as important as collecting itself. This is not just lip service but a true commitment to making real changes to ensure customers are more satisfied and have a better overall experience.”

It sounds like the collection industry is trying to shape up because they know that the new consumer bureau might be making changes.

Credit Expert Witness, John Ulzheimer, is the President of Consumer Education at SmartCredit.com, the credit blogger for Mint.com, and a Contributor for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.  He is an expert on credit reporting, credit scoring and identity theft. Formerly of FICO, Equifax and Credit.com, John is the only recognized credit expert who actually comes from the credit industry.  Follow him on Twitter here.

Categorised in: Credit Monitoring, Credit Report, Credit Score, Government, Money & Identity

This post was written by John Ulzheimer