What makes a good credit person?
I see lots of credit staff, either in our seminars or in their offices in the course of consulting or training projects. I hear the results of people’s work in terms of war stories they tell, or the figures that they achieve. In some cases I get to listen to recordings of their calls or plug in a headset to hear live calls in collection call centres. So I think I can recognise those who know what they’re doing. But what is it that all these good credit people have in common?
I’ve never tried to define "the sort of person who will be a good credit person."
I suppose I’ve always thought it was too hard - that there are all sorts of aspects to credit management and that all sorts of people could be good at credit management. Well, there are lots of aspects to credit management but the one that is vital and is common to just about every credit person is the ability to collect money off overdue customers. And it’s quite possible that all sorts of types of people can be good at credit management, but let’s see if we can work out what they have in common.
Without naming any names and embarrassing anyone, I’m going to tell you about some of the attributes I’ve see in some of the good credit staff I’ve known.
When talking to overdue customers Mildman is very quietly-spoken and non-threatening. He gets people to listen and gets them to face up to the situation. He has a very good understanding of how to use the legal process to apply pressure, but also of the limitations of the legal process, and when to back off and compromise.
Upfrontwoman has a very good understanding of psychology and, when required to do so, can influence people in a subtle way. However, her overriding rule is that she will always tell people when they do something she doesn’t want them to do. She’s also very good at letting customers know what behaviour she doesn’t want before they have a chance to display it - and the likely consequences of that behaviour. Often she uses humour, but sometimes she is just blunt. If the customer doesn’t respond to the first attempt, the next stage will be more unpleasant.
Persistancewoman is very confident and difficult to embarrass. She has a lovely smooth phone voice for saying the sometimes hard things that need to be said. She’s charming but very dogged - hard to put off - and thick-skinned.
Rapportman works particularly hard to build the relationships he needs with his customers, his colleagues, and his bosses. With customers, it’s about getting the connection that allows him to talk about difficult subjects when problems arise. In the case of his colleagues and boss, it’s about getting their confidence and earning the credibility to ensure that they can accept his decisions and support his actions. He is very much focussed on what is good for the overall business, as opposed to what makes his results look good.
Laughinggirl generally sounds as though she is full of joy. She sounds as though she has just been enjoying a good laugh with friends. Customers like her and they tend to want to do what she wants. Because she’s so good at it, she loves to call customers.
Hardcasewoman is a real character, with an enormous amount of confidence and a style all of her own. She’s the one who gave us the line, "I need to get as much money as I can in before the end of the month so I’m ringing my nicest customers." Because she can strike the right tone, the customers know it’s a joke, so everyone laughs, but... she’s now asked them for the money and as well as laughing, they pay.
Peopleperson is another charmer. As her name suggests, she’s very good at the empathy and understanding side of dealing with people, but without losing sight of the goal of collecting the money and with the ability, as with all of our examples, to take a hard line when necessary.
So what do these people have in common? Well, there are a lot of things, but I’ll pick on two.
First, they have the ability and the courage to say hard things to customers - the fact that the customer is overdue and that certain consequences will follow if the bill’s not paid - and to do it without upsetting or losing more customers than is necessary.
To look at it the other way, we know lots of credit people who aren’t able to pick up the phone (or not often enough), or who can’t say hard things to customers, or who, when they do say those hard things, say them in a way that upsets or loses customers (or at least upsets or loses more customers than they should).
The second common factor is closely related to the first. They all have a good understanding of a style or approach that works for them - the mix of diffidence or confidence or humour or charm or bluntness or subtlety or empathy or whatever is required - to allow them to call overdue customers and say the hard things that are necessary. They don’t all have the same method, but they all have a way of getting the message across that works.
Remember, these are just our initial thoughts on this question. We’re planning to do a lot more research into it. Watch this space.
Peter Hattaway is a director of Hattaways, specialists in credit management training and consulting - www.hattaways.com