Thursday, September 23, 2010

Dealing with a debt collection agency

Phase I - Selection of a collection agency

Select a collection agency is perhaps the most important and difficult task. Some factors to consider when selecting a collection agency are:

- Experience and professionals

- Geographical presence

- Skills

- Fees and pricing model

- References

- Collection Agency Services has addressed this issue in depth through various free collectionsreports and articles on this site.

Step II - Hiring a collection agency and the establishment of procedures

Once you select the collection agency, the first two steps to take are:

Sign a contract with the agency;

Establish processes for how you will communicate with the agency.

A contract is a legal document and legal experts, of course, is prepared correctly. Just make sure you include important clauses such asnondisclosure. Is likely to pass confidential information to a collection agency, such as accounts, contacts with customers, products and services, pricing, etc., to facilitate the recovery of debt faster. Want to be sure that this information does not fall into the wrong hands.

The creation process is an important step in dealing with the collection agency. The success or failure of the association will depend largely on howwell-defined processes and how strictly they are followed. Important processes to be defined are:

Internal processes: You have to put in place a clear process on defining bad debt and postponing the case to the internal collection agency. This is not to refer the case to the collection agency before making a sincere effort to allow entry.

Information Sharing: How will you transfer the information to the collection agencyabout your dues and defaulting customers, and how will you receive information from your office collection? software collection of debt can make the process of transferring information easily and securely.

on recruitment: As mentioned earlier, it's important for you to ensure the security of the information given to debt collection agencies. The collection agency may use one or more members of their organizations for information oncustomers. Then you must establish a clear protocol on the amount of information to be shared with third parties.

Note: You must define a single point of contact and communication with the collection agency business process. In debt collection practices, the timing of the communication is very important and, therefore, will go along way critical to the successful collection of debt. Once again, the importance of debtcollection software can not be underestimated.

Phase III - Monitoring Performance

Once all processes are in place, start monitoring the performance monitor collection agency. This is an ongoing process when dealing with a collection they are. Important parameters agency:

Quantitative

- Number of cases in which the collection agency debt and the percentage of cases successfully solved by them.

- Percentage of debtrecovered by the collection of all cases.

- Percent recovery agency debt collection cases settled.

- Percentage of the amount paid in fees or commission of the collection agency bad debt cases referred to them in general.

- Average number of days required for the collection agency for full / partial credit collection.

Qualitative

* How well does the collection agencyprofessionals meet their clients?

* Has the collection agency followed all legal requirements in the Fair Debt Collection Practices?

* Has the collection agency gone beyond the provisions of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act?

* Has the collection agency followed all processes and guidelines set out for you?

Phase IV - ContractClose

Hopefully the collection agency selected will work best for you. But if not, then you need to transfer the entire process of debt recovery agency. You should remember the following important points at the end of the contract:

Confidentiality and disclosure provisions do not apply even after the end of the contract with the collection agency and its employees. The collection agency returns all documentsrelated to your business and destroys all information related to your business of data storage.

By following these simple guidelines to ensure that when it comes to a collection agency that works best for you and your suffering is minimized.

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