Collection Agencies Serve
Necessary Needs

by Chip M
(Riverside, CA)

The debt collection industry has a public relations problem.

Your website is different from others because you address that head on. But, that’s just the first step.

Part of the problem is the collectors themselves. My experience is that many have been on the receiving end themselves of collection agencies and want to somehow get back at the people they are to contact. It’s not the best approach. Most people can recognize meaningless threats or bullying. And does it really work?

The agencies are “middle-men” between companies and their customers. The people who don’t pay their bills are the “bad guys,” not the debt collection agencies. That attitude doesn’t come through, but it should. Debt collection is a business, and it provides a service to its clients.

People don’t like TV commercials to interrupt them, but there is no eye-rolling about the ad agencies that create them. Tow truck drivers – who are also middle-men – are looked at as heroes who rescue people. Debt collectors need to see themselves as serving a need, especially in this economy, not a necessary evil.

The agencies didn’t set the high credit card rates, and they didn’t order mass layoffs at a local business.

Facts and figures should be used. Do more people lose their jobs every time someone doesn’t pay his or her phone bill? How many people are employed in the debt collection world? What do the agencies’ collections records tell them about how the economy is going?

I want my next agency to be one that doesn’t apologize for what it does. I hire them because I need to as part of my business. I’d much rather that my clients all paid their bills, but, until then….