5 Tips to Become a Great Debt Collection Agent from a Top Collector
If you are in the debt collection space, you know it’s not always an easy industry. As an agent, you are often on the receiving end of unpleasant interactions. As an agency owner, you may struggle to keep agents in seats or energize your floor.
Well, we’re here to help! One of our founders, Alex Villafranca, formerly owned a collection agency before going on to create a more powerful broadcast dialer than what he saw on the market. Before he owned his own agency, however, he started out as an agent. He became the top collector in only a few months! He shared how he did it using these five disciplines:
- Space out your day
Alex attributes a lot of his success to the fact that he was part time at the agency for four hours a day while he went to school.
“That was a huge advantage for me because I did not dread going to work,” he said. “I wasn’t getting tired or burnt out from looking at my computer screen all day.”
Though full-time employees may not have this luxury, try to take a 10 minute break here and there to re-energize and re-focus.
- It’s not about working “Smarter vs. Harder”
Alex believes that there’s no such thing as a “work smart vs. hard” mentality. He believes if you can’t do both, you can’t achieve anything.
By working smart, he would evaluate every call that came in and determine if he was best suited to handle that case. He remained self-aware in this evaluation, and made sure that if he wasn’t the best person to take the call, he passed it on to someone else.
By working hard, he remained self-motivated and when he did have the chance to get someone on the phone, he would work with them however he could to close a deal. When the phone wasn’t ringing, he would do his part in dialing out.
- Environment plays a huge role in success
“Creating some sort of team environment is extremely important,” he says.
Not everyone can do everything, and if all your agents feel like they belong to the same team, they will only be focusing on what’s best for them. When your collectors work together to pass calls on to the agent best suited for them, everyone wins.
- Take advantage of inbound calls
“No one walks on a lot unless they want to buy a car.”
Alex referred to the incoming calls as “a silver platter in front of you” – when your phone is ringing, you have a much better chance of closing a deal. As he mentioned earlier, always be willing to pass the call on to someone who may be better suited if you don’t feel like you are right for the task.
- Practice, Practice, Practice!
Alex wasn’t afraid of looking like a crazy person talking to himself in his car, on his lunch break or even at his desk. He would practice his talk off as often as he could because he recognized how important it was to be comfortable on the phone.
He believes role-playing is an extremely valuable tool, because even though it can be intimidating, easing into your talk off makes a big difference.
And those are his tips!
By applying these tips to your daily routine, you can thrive in a misunderstood but necessary industry.
This article courtesy of Arbeit Software and written by Emily Faracca.
Arbeit Software is a team of nerds who create the most efficient and productive cloud-based contact software for businesses of any size. We were founded by former collection agency owners who built their own broadcast dialer that is more powerful and easier to use than anything on the market. In addition, our highly customizable VoIP office phone system will modernize the way your business communicates with the world. Our software won’t drop calls, never lags and is designed to maximize calls per minute, operating on our own tier-1 carriers.
