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This training manual is designed to help you become the best collections
agent. This training manual will give you the most reliable knowledge so you know
what you are doing on the job.
In this manual it will go over policies, codes you need to know, and what to
do during certain calls. It also contains quizzes youll have to take when you finish
with certain sections of the manual. You will learn what your responsibilities are as
agents such as what account assignments you will have, catch up payments/plans,
and the difference between hardship plans and settlement plans.
As an agent you will also have to know how to handle a bankruptcy customer
and what legal actions you have to make. All of this and more will be explained to
you in this manual.
Account Assignments:
o For each day a collection agent is scheduled to work, they will
be assigned a past due list.
o Any accounts less than 15 days delinquent should not be called
with return code: R03 (No account/unable to locate account),
R04 (invalid account number) or R05 (improper debit to
consumer account) or any other issue that would put blame on
customer service.
Collection agents must limit their calls to their assigned
past due list unless otherwise instructed.
o Account Ownership: An account belongs to the Collection Rep if:
They were the last rep to attempt to or make contact with
the customer.
The customer is on a current Catch-Up plan with the Rep.
The customer has/had a Catch-Up plan and the last
payment failed less than 3 business days before.
The agent has worked out an arrangement with a
customer who does not have new account information.
The agent has 24-hours to receive information from
customer. Detailed notes must be made and timestamped in More Comments and View Actions.
Agent has 3 days to setup CU plan via email as long as
email communication is pasted in MORE COMMENTS
with timestamp and VIEW ACTIONS must have a note
stating Emailing with cust see more comments.
-If agent is away from phone at time of incoming call, they
have a 2-minute hold-time to retrieve call before the
answering agent can handle account.
If you are away from your phone, how many minutes of hold-time do you have to
retrieve before the answering agent can take over?
Catch-up Payments:
o A one-time payment to make up for a failed payment (account
MUST be past due).
o One-time payments can be accepted for any past due account
even if the one-time payment will not bring the account current.
o Cath up payments need to be added by the collection rep on
their individual spreadsheet. Payments will be processed by the
payment processor and moved into the appropriate collection
agents commission spreadsheet as they settle. Failed payments
will be marked accordingly.
If payment is off by $5.00 due to late fees, it will be
considered ok for full commission.
o Catch-Up payment amounts submitted by a collection agent to
the payment processor will be limited to the past due amount
plus the applicable NSF fee. (Upon customer request, collection
agent may collect more than the past due amount). Once the
account is brought current, the customer should be referred to
customer service in order to make an extra payment and/or
schedule future payments.
In order to schedule future payments, customer must sign
a form: E.G., one time extra payment, regular payment
increase of payment authorization.
Customer is subject to a $30 payment modification fee
prior to the form being sent by the customer service
agent, unless otherwise noted.
o If customer wants to defer a scheduled payment of more than
then (10) days out, customer must pay a $10 deferment fee
unless otherwise noted.
o Extensions on 90-day SAC date need to be noted in VIEW
ACTIONS:
1-3 day extension=Grace period, no fee
4-30 day extension=10% of cash price + remaining cash
balance (Not offered, customer must ask/request)
DO NOT CHANGE THE SAC EXP DATE. Make sure to include
the EPO with the extension fee in notes.
Catch-up Plans
o A series of payments designed to bring an account current
(account must be past due)
o Catch-up plan payments can vary from 120% of the regular
payment amount and up. Collection agents are free to negotiate
within this range so that the customer can actually perform on
this catch-up plan
Hardship Payments
o Any payment
the customer
o Any payment
the customer
Catch-Up payments that are not received by the next due date
will be considered hardship unless there are notes stating that
customers due date has changed, E.G., new job, incorrect pay
schedule, etc.
Hardship payments will be discounted by 50% when
being added to the commission bucket
Hardship Plans
o NSF Fees may not be charged on hardship plans.
If the 1st payment of the catch-up plan is hardship, a fee
may be charged on the following non-hardship payment
(as long as there has only been one hardship payment).
o If Catch-Up payments are split, within the same billing cycle but
2nd payment is scheduled on the following month, then the 1 st
Catch-Up payment will be considered hardship and next
payment will be full credit.
Split payments that are within the same billing period will
be moved to full commission as long as the 2 nd payment
clears.
o Partial payments less than 50% of the customers regular
payment are considered hardship and the collection agent has 3
days to collect the remaining balance in order to make it full
commission.
We will not accept partial payments less than $5.00; any
fees in other will be removed.
Settlement Plans
o A settlement is a one-time payment which will close a
customers account at a certain amount above the cash price.
o ANY/ALL SETLLEMENTS MUST BE APPROVED BY THE
DEPARTMENT MANAGER. Notes need to be made in VIEW
ACTIONS.
o Settlement plans will be moved over to hardship unless the
length of the plan is approved by the department manager.
In most instances, the customer must make a good faith
payment on the day or the following day that the
settlement is offered, unless authorized by the
department manager.
If customer fails the settlement plan, the settlement plan
will no longer be valid; the account should still be looked
at by the department manager.
o
Bankruptcy Customers
Susan just got done with a phone call where she set up a payment schedule with an
overdue customer. She set up a payment of $50 to be charged on 1/1, 2/1, 3/1, and
4/1 to close off the account. Did she set up Catch-Up Payments or a Catch-Up Plan?
Mark is talking to a customer on the phone that is overdue. The customer is saying
that he cant make the minimum payments on his lease agreement due to a pay cut
at work. Mark decides to set him up on a plan where instead of paying the full
regular payment amount of $150, he has him paying $25 every other week on
Fridays. Once Mark gets off the phone he notates in RTO and on his spreadsheet the
new plan. This is the first plan that has been set up on this customers account. Can
Mark charge an NSF fee?
Anne has been trying to get a hold of a customer who is over 150 days past due.
She decided to ask her department manager to approve a one-time payment of
$400 that will close the account. The cash price of the lease is $300. Anne types up
an email and sends it to the customer. The customer emails back in the next three
hours accepting the offer and says that the payment can be made on Tuesday 7/10.
Its Monday. What kind of plan did Anne set up with the customer?
Fred has been calling number after number on his past due list with no success. He
comes across an account that says BANKRUPTCY in the comment line. Can Fred call
the customer?
T or F: After receiving proper information for a Bankruptcy, the agent is still allowed
to try and collect.
Failed Payments:
o Any payments that fail for any reason other than R01
(Insufficient Funds) need to be notated on the Comment Line in
RTO as FAILED NOT R01
o Accounts notated as FAILED NOT R01 will not be processed for
additional payments until the payment failure is resolved (a
payment is considered resolved once a payment settles that was
taken immediately following a failed payment).
o Once payments have been resolved the FAILED NOT R01
comment should be removed for the Comment Line in RTO.
o Customer Service agents processing payments should be
vigilant to identify payment failures due to an invalid account,
unable to locate account or similar return codes. Such return
codes may indicate a pre-paid debit card or other unauthorized
account type. In these cases the customer service agent should
contact the customers bank regarding the account type and the
accounts ABA number in error to determine whether the ABA
number used belongs solely to unauthorized account types in
which case, the ABA number should be added to the ABA
blacklist repository in the portal.
Catch-Up Plans:
o Record all Catch-Up plans in the Payments spreadsheet in
order to process payments as agreed. Once a Catch-Up payment
is processed, the payment should be colored green on the
Catch-Up Payment spreadsheet. Once the payment settles, it
will be bolded and if the payment fails it will be marked red.
Payments will be deleted from the Catch-Up payment
spreadsheet 31 days after the payment was processed.
o If a Catch-Up plan fails, the payment processor will notate the
Comment Line in RTO as CU PLAN Failed 1. If the Catch-Up
payment fails again, the payment processor will notate TRO as
CU PLAN Failed 2. After the second failure, the payment
processor will remove the Catch-Up plan including all future
payments from the Payments spreadsheet and the customers
negotiated Catch-Up plan will be cancelled.
NSF Payments:
o Twice Monthly on the 1st and then on the 15th, customer services
will attempt to process a payment for the standard payment
amount for all past due customers notated in the RTO as FAILED
NOT R01 this twice monthly attempt will be limited to
customers identified as FAILED NOT R01
Once Monthly Collections Reporting:
o
o
o
o
o
Once
o
o
o
o
o
Yellow
Magenta
Orange
Gray
Light Green
Dark Green
Neon Green
Cyan Blue
Light Red
Collection Commissions
While taking care of returned payments, Amanda comes across an account that is
an NSF and the customer pays weekly. She looks at the payment history and notices
that the last payment has been marked 1st RETURN. This is the second NSF in a row
with this account. What is she supposed to do?
Magenta
Orange
Gray
Light Green
Dark Green
Neon Green
Cyan Blue
Light Red
FAQs
- How to determine if an account is past due?
Using a calendar we need to determine how many payments a customer
should have made versus how much rent they have paid.
- When is an NSF fee applicable?
Fees cannot be charged due to partial payments. The customer must have a
failed payment and the payment must meet: 1) 100% of the regular payment
if the account is only one payment behind plus the fee or
2) if the acct is more than one payment behind, they should collect 120% of
the regular payment plus the fee.
Fees cannot be added due to return codes: R03 Unable to locate account,
R04 invalid acct number or R05 improper debit to consumer acct.
- Is it hardship or full commission?
Catch-Up plan payments can vary from 120% of the regular payment amount
and up. If it is less than 100% of the regular payment the Catch-Up plan
payment will be moved to hardship.
**If customer is on regular monthly payments, customer will be required to
make at least 1/2 of the regular monthly payment within 2 weeks of setting
up the arrangement for full commission.
- If the payment clears as a partial should the rest of the plan be
deleted?
The plan will continue if the partial payment was more than half of a regular
payment. Make sure to remove fees from payment and SS.
- When do we fail Catch-Up plans if a customer is sending a
check/money order?
If we have not received a check or money order within 10 days of the CP
date on the SS we will mark it as failed. Collectors must be notating when
the check will be mailed so that we can determine (calculate) its arrival.
- Can I put the customer back on autopay?
The customer may be put back on autopay as long as we are not pushing out
the due date by more than 1/2 of a regular payment.