Collector - October 2016 - 30

BUSINESSOPERATIONS The Formula of Five Asking five questions can help you get to the root cause of a complaint. By Anne Rosso May C onsumer complaints provide valuable information that can help improve your business. They may highlight a flawed policy or a glitch in a technological application-issues that may not have been immediately exposed without this feedback. Andrew C. Hall, Esq., legal compliance officer and general counsel for Estate Information Services LLC, noted that 90 percent of the complaints that come into his company are rooted in a consumer's basic misunderstanding of the underlying debt. "Most of these cases we can resolve over the phone with the consumer," Hall said. "The complaint gets tagged in our system, a supervisor reviews it to determine the nature of the complaint, and then the collector calls the consumer to explain what's going on and to answer that person's question. Often this whole process starts and is resolved in the same day." But some complaints aren't as easily decoded. Maybe the consumer is threatening to file a lawsuit, or maybe it's obvious that the issue is not a simple misunderstanding. In these cases, the next step is to pinpoint the root cause of the problem-to figure out how you can resolve the issue and avoid getting similar complaints in the future. One technique that Hall often relies on is "the Five Whys." Reportedly first developed in the 1980s by a Toyota car executive, the Five Whys helps to pinpoint the root cause of any problem. It works like this: QUESTION 1: WHY DID THE CONSUMER COMPLAIN? Sally called the consumer about his debt. QUESTION 2: WHY WAS HE UPSET ABOUT THAT? Sally called him after he'd sent a cease and desist letter. QUESTION 3: WHY DID SALLY DO THAT? She didn't follow the company's policy on this issue. QUESTION 4: WHY DIDN'T SHE FOLLOW THE COMPANY'S POLICY? She was unaware of the policy. TRACKING SYSTEM: NO COMPLAINT IS TOO SMALL Logging complaints helps you determine whether your training, technology, policies and procedures are working as they should. Even if the complaint is not escalated beyond the collector, it should be tracked. If you are getting 50 angry phone calls a month about a particular client, and in each situation your collector is able to calm the consumer, explain your agency's process and send the person on his way feeling better, chalking the issue up as "not worth reporting" is a huge failure. "If you are getting that many calls on a single issue, that tells me that something the client is doing needs to be fixed," said Andrew C. Hall, Esq., legal compliance officer and general counsel for Estate Information Services LLC. "All we can do is collect the information and report it-we can't make the client act. But we do want the client to be aware of any potential issues. That's why it's important to capture things properly." 30 ACAINTERNATIONAL.ORG http://www.ACAINTERNATIONAL.ORG

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Collector - October 2016