You Want Normal With That?

Somebody owes you money. You see them all of the time. You consider them friends. You go out and do things, but the debt, the loan, never comes up in the conversation. You had expected the money to be paid back in a short period of time, but now it is long passed. You wonder if maybe they’ve forgotten. You know one of these days you are going to have to ask for it. You really don’t want to ask. In fact, you’d almost rather let it go, forget about it than have to ask. Asking for money is the last thing you want to do.

Who likes asking for money? Do normal people like to call up perfect strangers and ask them to pay a debt that doesn’t even belong to them? If a regular person cannot muster the courage to ask for repayment of his own loan, what kind of person is willing to do it for someone else? Is it a normal, that is sane, individual who is willing to ask strangers for money and to be compensated so little? Sales people are paid a lot of money to make sales, yet collectors are paid a proportional pittance to collect it. You’d have to be nuts to want to be a collector.

And talk about respect. No one respects collectors. Credit managers and collectors are the Rodney Dangerfield of business. No child dreams of going into credit management. Kids want to be doctors, rock stars or lawyers. It’s not a career path you consider when choosing colleges. People who get into the field do so rather than law enforcement or the ministry, two occupations that put a high value on normalcy.

No one likes to be called and asked to pay a bill. No one likes to be reminded that they are past due. In fact, most people resent having to be called and they resent the collector. Debtors do not like collectors. Just asking for money is considered rude. If we are striving to have everyone like us, we can just about write off entire segments of the population. You expect not to be liked or respected if you are a credit professional. Do normal people seek so much disrespect and abhorrence?

Should a normal well adjusted human being enjoy collecting money? People calling for money are intentionally causing someone, a perfect stranger, to be stressed. Collectors put people on the spot. They make them feel uncomfortable. They are irritating. Is that normal behavior? Would you want to hang around with someone who actually thinks it is fun to antagonize people and manipulate them into doing something they do not really want to do?

A company’s collection department is made up, therefore, of individuals who either hate what they do or who are completely nuts. Then, to make matters worse, if they do not collect enough, it is their fault. Not the debtor’s for failing to pay, oh no, it is the fault of those incompetent social misfits and the solution is to fire the bunch and replace them with a new group of social misfits.

Normal or not, good collectors enjoy collecting. For them, it is a game. Each time they get a check from a debtor that required them to call more than once, they feel a sense of profound satisfaction. Unlike a lot of jobs, collectors see their results. They are relatively easy to measure and if they are competitive, they respond well to positive feed back. Each difficult situation is seen as a new challenge. Days are never dull. There is always a sense of the hunt and the thrill of victory. But, yes, have to be a little crazy.

Too often, companies draft the wrong personality type to perform the collection task. Timid accounts receivable clerks, barely able to look at people in the eye are told to go out there and demand payment from the biggest customers. How hard can it be? Then, when a customer gets upset, or complains of the rudeness of the collector, or flies off the handle, the easily intimidated are too afraid to make any more calls. These are the collectors who send a lot of letters or insist the sales reps do the collection work. These are credit people who refuse to take on a new customer if there is a hint of slow pay suggesting it’ll require a phone call to collect.

This is where Strategic Credit Management Solutions can help. We have over thirty years of credit management experience. We can relate to the, shall we say, off kilter. We can help you determine who are the good collectors and who are not. We can sift the nuts from the normal and help you put together an effective and efficient collection team. See our website http://powerscredit.com/.

Your comments are welcome.