The amount of fire telecom collections is under due to the TCPA is enough to get even the most optimistic collection professional down. It takes a great amount of resilience to hold your head up and decide to claim success in the face of resistance. It is for this reason that Collection Advisor shines the Agency Spotlight on Diversified Consultants Incorporated. DCI has remained triumphant in these hard times for telecom collections due in large part to attitude. We spoke to DCI’s COO, Gordon Beck III, about how they maintain this attitude and how they translate it into profit.
When did Diversified Consultants open its doors?
DCI opened in February of 1993; this year we celebrated our 20th anniversary. I started with DCI in June of 1998 and celebrated my 15-year anniversary with the company this month.
What kind of debt do you collect in addition to telecom debt?
DCI is the only agency in the country to collect specifically on telecom; we do not service any other type of debt. Our client base includes the likes of AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Comcast, Verizon, Dish Network, DIRECTV, US Cellular and more.
What do you do to stay competitive? DCI is currently ranked number one for every client we service. The secret is simple, contract knowledge and a proactive approach. When DCI trains new hires,we do not train them as debt collectors we train them as “telecom” debt collectors. For those that have collected on manydifferent types of debt, they will tell you that telecom is a much different animal. Having finesse with the customer and telling them all the positives that come from resolving the debt rather than what will happen to them if they don’t is a great approach on high volume, yet low balance telecom accounts. In addition to this approach, contract knowledge is vital. Most telecom contracts are very similar with the only differences being ETF amounts and data/roaming limits. Training agents on the ins and outs of each client’s contract specifics is a great tool that allows the agents to unravel what would otherwise be a confusing bill that may have caused the consumer not to pay. With that said, being telecom specific is definitely our greatest advantage. If I have a project that is lower than it should be on the scorecard, I can re-align staff in a moment’s notice with little to no up-training while other agencies might have to pull from a completely different project to staff their deficiencies which would require weeks of training and a slow turnaround.
How do you keep your collectors motivated and happy?
Atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere. Collections is a tough job so making it fun for your people and getting them engaged is a constant struggle in this business. Those that can master an employee friendly environment are those that are going to excel and succeed. Creating an environment that is electric can be achieved by doing some of the littlest things. Low cubicles are the foundation of creating the “hum” that is necessary to having an exciting floor and creating teamwork. Playing music throughout the office and utilizing noise cancelling headphones produces energy and keeps the floor “pepped” up. When you walk on the floor at DCI you feel like you are on Wall Street. The age-old adage that commotion creates emotion couldn’t be more true. When I step onto the floor and I can barely hear myself think, I know we are collecting money. Once you have created an awesome atmosphere you have to fuel that atmosphere through incentives on a constant basis. Many organizations have large monthly contests and in a lot of cases there is one main prize, but with over 400 agents in Jacksonville and Portland to keep happy, we have had a lot more success in doing smaller incentives on a daily basis. One such incentive is our “spin the wheel” contest where we load up the wheel with a myriad of prizes ranging from cold hard cash, to lottery tickets and even PTO [paid time off] certificates and free direct payments. It’s really simple; get a payment then spin the wheel. We do this all day everyday and it really creates a fun and exciting environment for our agents where everyone can win!
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| DCI's collection floor. |
A big part of keeping a successful floor is getting the employees engaged and excited about what the company is doing and accomplishing. In order to do this, your employees must know that they matter. Your agents should be a name and a face, not just a collector number. They must know that the company is a magnificent puzzle and they are a piece of that puzzle; and that they are just as important as the next person. No matter how beautiful the puzzle, if even one piece is missing, it ruins the entire masterpiece. Each and every Friday I walk the floor and shake each and every hand and say good morning and thank you for being a part of our success. It’s something this little that goes a very long way. Constant recognition is also very important. Every month we hold an office meeting and monthly award ceremony in which one person from every unit is given the employee of the month award and in addition to that we hand out leadership awards, department stand-outs and overall employees of the month for both branch locations. After the awards are given out we discuss current events, compliance related issues and we go over the goals for all of our clients, how we fared against those goals and what ranking we had on the scorecard. By always keeping the staff abreast of what we are achieving gives them the sense of accomplishment for a job well done and makes them want to continue to work hard so DCI can stay on top.
Every quarter DCI hosts an event called “Green Day”. This is a day where the employees are pampered from the moment they walk in until the moment they leave. This day is a day of fun and excitement that takes weeks to plan. When the employees arrive on Green Day they walk into the office that is decorated head to toe with balloons, money signs and streamers; and the supervisors serve them breakfast as they head to their seat where they are greeted with a grab bag of goodies and office supplies. All day long we run one contest after another giving away thousands of dollars worth of prizes that range from fishing poles to big screen televisions. At the half-way-point in the day the collectors are served a catered lunch as even more prizes are drawn and the rest of the day is the same story. When the dust settles, Green Day generates a 40% increase in collections from the average day and the employees go home with a great sense that DCI loves its people.
Each and every year I write a mission statement for the company. We pass the mission statement out on the first day of the year and make it mandatory for the employees to have it memorized by February 1st. This year’s mission statement is titled “You Paint the Grass” and this is how it reads:
Wanting more and getting more is the difference between success and failure. Those that go out and get more are those that don’t always look for where the grass is green, yet they paint the grass green where they stand. This year at DCI we are not just going to hang on or just get by, we are going to be the best because we are going to try the hardest, sacrifice the most and refuse to be average. This year, we are going to paint the grass.
-Gordon Beck
I loved this year’s mission statement on so many levels. For starters, it really showed us how much the collectors believe in our goals and objectives as 393 out of 398 recited back the mission statement perfectly on their first attempt. When we offered our “Paint the Grass” mission statement t-shirts they were purchased by every last employee. The actual content of the mission statement defines what our company has become. Telecom debt is the lowest yielding type of paper the industry has to offer. Being that we are telecom specific, it puts us at a disadvantage to our competitors in our city that can afford to pay their agents $15.00 an hour or more, whereas we pay much lower. Attrition and revolving doors are a big part of this industry, but we wanted to change that. Having an incredible atmosphere, great bonus structure and turning an otherwise tough job into something that is fun and enjoyable has allowed us to hold some of the lowest attrition percentages in the industry. I instill in the employees that it is so easy, when the going gets tough, to look to where the grass seems greener, but true champions and loyal employees are the ones that make the most of where they are and paint the grass green where they stand. I can tell you whole-heartedly that this mentality has separated DCI from the pack and our incredible staff that is dedicated to our clients, and to the consumers to make collections a good experience is the reason for our overall success.
What technology do you use the most and why?
Our hosted dialing solution and our skip trace process are vital technological platforms that are of the utmost importance in liquidating telecom accounts at a high level. LiveVox is currently DCI’s hosted solution where we connect with them via VoIP for cost efficiency. Because telecom comes with high volume and a low-average balance, you need the ability to make millions of phone calls a day, something we could not do when operating through a premise-based system. A hosted solution provides us with multisite compatibility, unlimited line capacity, extraordinary reporting; and matrix solutions to ensure that your agents are on-line and effective; and that our inventory is receiving the proper treatment strategies. It’s a one-stop-shop in dialing which is our most important tool in the collections process.
Skip tracing arguably is just as important as our dialer from the standpoint that if we don’t have a good process then we don’t have effective numbers to dial in the first place. It’s been an industry standard for many years to do an initial inventory batch and then 90 days later perform a secondary attempt; I don’t agree with that strategy. There are two platforms for receiving data, public record and credit bureau. I believe in utilizing both of these avenues in the first week of placement. When DCI receives an account it is immediately sent to Trans to attach their CPE (Collection Prioritization Engine) to the account. The great thing about this product is my ability to choose off of a “menu” exactly what I want to have on the account. We only choose to bring in positive trade information such as credit card availability and presence of a current mortgage. If you put everything on the account then all too often your agents might see multiple collections or charge-offs that can discourage them from giving their best efforts.
In telecom, everyone can pay regardless of score, demographics or credit due to the fact that the average balance is so low. In knowing this, it is important that the agents give the same effort on every single account and our process aids them in doing that. In addition to credit bureau data, Trans also provides employer info, recovery score and, of course, location information. At this point we are smiling and dialing and for the first five days we get all the “cream” off the top as well as a majority of the disputes, fraud, bankruptcy and deceased accounts identified. On day six, we then send what is left over to CBCInnovis in batch format to get location information from this public record provider. D. J. Cox and his team at CBC are amazing in knowing the telecom platform and exactly what we need on a secondary level and his de-duping strategy prevents me from getting the same phone number twice. The accounts with hits become new biz again on the second week of placement. This ensures a consistent dominance out of the gate for that placement month. In addition to the initial batches done with these two providers, the accounts are placed in the trigger program to continuously monitor them for new location information, essentially skip tracing the accounts everyday for the entire life of the placement.
What are your most pressing compliance challenges in telecom collection?
There is no doubt that the TCPA is the most pressing issue. Being telecom specific puts us at the epicenter of the TCPA madness. The phone numbers that are causing DCI, and all of the other agencies, to get sued come directly from the clients we represent. If we are given a phone number by one wireless provider, there is a good chance that the number is active with one of our other clients because it was ported out. Cell phone numbers are all over our accounts so we have to rely on a national database, updated daily, to identify the numbers and make sure they are being manually dialed. Let’s face it, the TCPA was not meant for collection agencies, it was meant for telemarketers. Putting collection agencies under the TCPA umbrella has not only hurt the agency’s ability to collect, but it has cost our clients millions and millions in recoveries. The only hope we have at this point is for judges to start really looking into these TCPA cases and making educated decisions as to the actual harm, if any, that is done to the consumer by dialing them from an auto-dialer versus a manual call. I personally don’t see any, but the FTC did at some point and their opinion on the matter has been severely detrimental to the national economy and our client’s ability to recover their bad debt. Under the leadership of the ACA, the industry is bonding together to fight this unprecedented error in judgment and I am very confident that we will one day be exempt from this ruling.
What security levels have you attained (PCI, SAS/ SSAE etc)?
Because of the major clients we represent we are required by most to have PCI and SSAE 16, so we have both!
In addition, it might be worth noting that DCI is a nationally certified woman owned business by the WBENC. This certification is very attractive to major companies and has brought DCI a ton of business along with our strong performance.
What has Diversified Consultants done to ensure success in telecom collections?
It’s a combinationof many things. DCI’s success didnot come easily and it took many yearsof trial and error, experience, hardshipsand failures for us to live and learn fromin order for us to get it right. I thinkthe first thing you have to look at is theclient relationship. DCIhas never lost a client in20 years of telecom collectionsbecause there is nothing asked ofus that we do not deliver. Whether it bea special project, an investment, growthor process implementation, we never sayno to an organization that we represent.It’s one thing to collect a lot of money,but another to do it complaint free andwith minimal back-office issues and wehave an incredible administrative staffthat is headed up by our CEO, CharlotteZehnder, VP of Administration, ChateauWright and Director of Administration,Kimmy Ross. In addition to this, a strongmanagement team is also a necessity. Toensure we have the best leadership, DCIhas always hired management from within.Our staff of 28 supervisors that is ledby our VP of Operations, Michael Anna,all have at least eight years of telecom experienceinside the walls of DCI.
As we have already talked about, the atmosphere, technology and product knowledge goes a long way, but our people still have to collect the bills. DCI’s collection staff in Portland and Jacksonville is made up of a group of people that love the company they work for and come in every day with a smile on their face and get on the phones to help consumers that have gotten behind. We don’t use the word “debtor” anymore because it’s all about attitude and culture. Our culture is based on the fact that we are doing a service for the United States economy, the clients that are the foundation of that economy and the consumers that are fuel for that economic engine. We want to help people and we want them to get off the phone with a DCI representative and know that collections doesn’t have to be a bad experience. Our agents love this mentality and actually find their job rewarding and that is a win for our organization, our clients and the consumers that we work with on a daily basis. We all love what we do and it shows on each and every call.
What do you do to keep your office efficient?
Efficiency is the primary factor of a profitable telecom project. As I mentioned before, you are dealing with low yields and that gives you a much slimmer margin of error. Two major types of efficiency are on the vendor level and the agent level. When dealing with vendors you must make your dollar travel long distances. It is important that you are consistently negotiating your contracts with your phone providers, letter vendors and skip tracing companies to ensure that you are getting great bulk rates, getting only what you need and what you are going to use. As your volume increases, your rates decrease. You never want to tie yourself into multi-year deals because the landscape is constantly changing as your volume is constantly increasing due to good production. Trapping yourself into these types of deals without yearly re-negotiation clauses can prove to be a very costly mistake.
On an agent level is where your organization will either thrive or die. Setting reasonable goals of profitability for each agent with excellent compensation is a great start, but getting them there is a whole other ball game. Training is free and is the best tool a company has. At DCI we believe that showing them the road is not as effective as walking the road with them. Constant up-training utilizing each individual’s recordings is a key factor in progressing the agent’s profitability. A lot of times it is only one small thing that an agent is saying on the phone that can make a difference of thousands in collections. We are committed to finding those flaws on a daily basis, helping the agent make the necessary changes and turning it into dollars.
How is Diversified Consultants involved in the community?
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| A collection by DCI staff for a food drive. |
DCI believes in giving back and when you have a large staff, it is easy to do. As I mentioned before, DCI does four Green Day events every year. The week leading up to Green Day we do our quarterly food drives. In addition to Green Day, we also do this in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Six times a year when we do our food drive we purchase one major prize for each office, one in Jacksonville and one in Portland. For every non-perishable food item that an employee brings in they will receive a raffle ticket to put in for the drawing for this prize and that drawing is done on the day of the Green Day event or during our holiday party for each respective holiday. This has become a great tradition at DCI; and since we started this four years ago, our organization has fed over 2,000 needy families. All food items in Jacksonville go to the Second Harvest and in Portland they go to the Portland Rescue Mission. We are strong believers in giving and the blessings we have given have come back to us ten-fold.
What is one tip you would give fellow collection professionals?
Get out your shovel and dig. No matter how big your organization or how small, when the management and executives roll up their sleeves and get in the trenches with their people, the respect they earn and the production that follows is unprecedented. Know your people. When I walk up to a new employee and shake their hand and know their name, it goes a very long way. Like I said before, your employees should be a name and a face, not a collector number.
Treat your clients like gold. Going through the sales cycle and landing a client can take months if not years. They are the lifeblood of the organization and no matter how big or how small, treat every client equally with the same work effort and you will form a partnership that will never fail.
Lastly, love what you do. If you don’t love it, then leave it. We love the fact that we can come into work every day in an industry that has been cast in a negative light and prove people wrong. At DCI we get more thank you letters than we do complaints and that is because we look at every consumer as someone that just wants to be heard and someone that wants to be helped. DCI collects nearly 40,000 payments a month and out of those 40,000 consumers that we interact with we may get 10-15 escalations. The outside world feeds on the negative and only wants to look at those 10-15, not the 39,985 people that we helped build their credit, gave them the time they needed to pay the bill or saved them money through a settlement. We know and accept the stereotype and are working hard every day to change it. Collection agencies that do things the right way do so much more good for the consumer than bad and we want the whole world to know it.