How To Empower Collection Agents in NBFC Contact Centers?

According to a statistical result released by TrustPilot, around 90% of American consumers put customer experience as a major driving factor to choose a company with which they want to do business. There are so many statistical results available that favor customer service as the deciding criteria for consumers. This is the reason businesses heavily dependent on customer service such as an NBFC (Non-Banking Financial Company) invest in the best technology and team. They invest heavily in setting up an NBFC contact center with the best call center software and highly experienced customer service agents and debt collectors.

But, the question arises here is that, is that it?

Does hiring experienced agents and getting the best tools for an NBFC call center meet the need of improving the standard of customer services?

Well, that may handle one part of this crucial job, but it does not handle everything it should to improve customer experience. The job of debt collectors is quite complicated and stressful. Thus, NBFCs have to work on possible aspects to empower customer service agents, so they can work more productively and increase the efficiency of different campaigns like collection, loan management, KYC verification, and more.

According to the statistical result shared by Psycnet, the empowered team can provide better performance, they will be more satisfied with their job to reduce attrition, and they will show a higher level of loyalty to the organization. To leverage all these and several other advantages, follow the below mentioned tips to empower your collection agents and customer service agents in NBFC.

1. Build the right team

Whether you want to improve customer service or you just want to run collection campaigns in your NBFC to increase the recovery of dues, it is necessary to have the right team. Without hiring the best and most skilled debt collectors or customer service agents for your NBFC contact center, you will not be able to yield anything even if you give them all the liberty or use the best call center solution.

Do not hire agents that have worked in different campaigns of customer services, but hire agents that have experience working in banking or non banking financial companies. They can do better justice to the job if the right work culture is provided to them.

2. Share best practices

You cannot expect the best performance from your agents until you have kept them in the loop of expectations. Share and implement the best practices from the upper level of the NBFC call center. Create an open environment in which agents can thrive. They must have the right to share their opinion or ask any confusing questions that can help them improve customer service standards or their own performance. You can also document the best practices, so your agents can refer to them as and when they need.

3. Training and mentoring must be an integral part

Even if you have hired skilled and experienced agents, training and mentoring might be needed to keep your agents upgraded with technology, new standards related to customer services, new regulatory changes imposed on the NBFC contact center, and other aspects. Thus, training and mentoring at regular intervals are necessary. Moreover, demand based training and mentoring can also empower your customer service agents. For example, if there is any new type of debt collection case that has come across one of the debt collectors, then the supervisor or concerned person must mentor the agents during a live call or after the call depending on the situation. This will not only empower agents but also improve the operational model of an NBFC call center.

4. Don’t micromanage the team

Giving training and mentoring to agents is good to empower them and improve customer service scale, but micromanaging them would not. For example, if you have got the best call center solution for your NBFC contact center, then you must give the required training to agents. Moreover, you need to keep the work culture open, so agents can come and ask their questions without any fear of getting judged or marked as underperformers. Along with giving them the required support, give them the liberty to make decisions. They should be allowed to make decisions at a certain level based on their experience. This is the reason you hired experienced agents, right? So use their experience instead of guiding them on everything.

5. Provide the right tools

Experience, empowerment, and liberty will fail without the right tools. Thus, whether you want to empower your agents or increase the performance of your NBFC call center, it is necessary to get the best tools such as an NBFC solution, payment utility, IVR for collection, call center solution, etc. All these tools have to be advanced with value added features and technologies. For example, unified communication channels are necessary for your call center solution for NBFC as customers need omnichannel support. You have to provide the best tools to empower your agents. This can help them meet client expectations and the quality of campaigns related to customer services.

6. Don’t penalize for genuine mistakes

Mistakes are common and agents may make some genuine mistakes. In that case, you may discuss not making such mistakes personally with that agent. However, do not humiliate your team in front of other team members. Also, don’t impose any sort of penalties on your agents to make mistakes. They may feel demoralized and disconnected due to that. 

7. Implement a reliable quality assurance policy

Another vital step an NBFC can take to empower customer service agents in the NBFC is to implement the right QA policies. You can also use technology tools like AI voice analysis, which automates quality assurance of calls and services. This will also give direct clues to your agents to improve subtle areas that they might not notice due to busy work schedules or habits. This tool can be integrated into your call center solution and make quality assurance an integral process. This will empower your agents and improve the performance of the NBFC contact center.

Concluding notes

Debt collection and customer service agents play a very crucial role in the NBFC contact center. Giving them the right work culture, the best tools, the right to act without waiting for permission, and following other tips mentioned in this blog post can empower them. Focus your resources on agent empowerment because they do the tough job of delighting customers and even handling their mood swings. An empowered team of agents will be able to enjoy high job satisfaction and work life balance, which will clearly reflect in their performance and productivity. Thus, putting efforts into improving NBFC agents will definitely yield the best results.  

If you are interested in the right tools that can help you improve the efficiency of collection, empower your agents, automate processes, and benefit in other ways, then we can help. Our team has built exclusive solutions and tools for non banking financial companies like a payment utility, collection module, NBFC software, AI voice analysis, omnichannel call center solution, and more. Our business development team will be happy to demonstrate how you can take advantage of these powerful tools in a personalized demo. To book a demo, contact us NOW!