Improve Your Communication Skills

By Debra Ciskey, IFCCE
Published: September 26, 2007

Being polite and displaying empathy can help boost collection success.

Are you in a communication rut? Have you considered that you could improve your collection attempts if you improved your communication skills?

As you gear up for the end of the year, use the following communication tips to help you exceed your goals.

Don't interrupt the consumer. Interrupting people just makes them angry. Even if you've heard it all before, let consumers have their say.

Listen more than you talk. This is closely linked to the previous tip.

You will learn information that will help you collect the account if you listen to what the consumer has to say.

Understanding isn't agreeing. You can express empathy for the consumer's situation without agreeing with his reason for not paying the account. For example, saying, "I hear what you are saying-I'm sorry you are having tough times right now," is an expression of empathy. Following it up with, "Let's work together to solve this problem," directs the conversation back to getting the account paid.

Say "please," "thank you" and "I'm sorry." When you say "I'm sorry" to a consumer, you aren't necessarily apologizing for anything you did- it's an expression of kindness that everyone likes to hear. When you tell someone whose cat just died, "I'm sorry for your loss," you are not saying you killed the cat. Therefore, when you say to a consumer, "I'm sorry you are experiencing hardships right now," you are not apologizing for causing them, because you didn't. Saying "I'm sorry" differentiates you from the bill collector who doesn't care and who ends up not getting paid. Saying "please" and "thank you" go a long way in any conversation. Saying "please" helps when you are requesting permission to go to a difficult place in a conversation. A statement like, "Please let's explore some options you might not have considered before" can open the door to a discussion of money sources the consumer may not have been willing to discuss otherwise. Saying "thank you" is just common courtesy. If the consumer pays you, thank him! If a third party gives you an updated phone number, thank her!

Use open-ended questions to gain valuable information. Asking, "Who could help you pay this bill this week?" will open up the consumer's mind to possibilities more than, "Can someone help you pay this bill?" The question, "Who could help you?" can help bring to mind people for the consumer to consider. Asking, "Can someone. . ." brings to mind two words for the consumer-yes or no.

Frame your questions in a positive tone. To carry through the example from the previous tip, the statement, "You don't have family who can help you pay this, do you?" will always result in a "no" response, because the question leads the person to say "no." A positive tone opens up the consumer's mind to possibilities, not obstacles.

Listen to yourself periodically. Do you sound like a robot going through the motions call after call, or do you sound like a collection professional who makes every consumer a top priority? If you have the option, listen to your calls from different times of the day. The consumer you speak with at 4 p.m. deserves the same effort you gave to the consumer you spoke with at 9 a.m.

Don't get inflamed by inflammatory language. Be wary of your instinct to respond to the consumer's anger and frustration with your own anger and frustration. A calm response will de-escalate the situation. Using these tips will move you from a potentially rocky road to the road to success when speaking with consumers and obtaining your goals.

Debra Ciskey, IFCCE, is director, performance development group, for Afni Inc. in Bloomington, Ill.

For additional training tips covering telephone communication skills, consider ACA's Professional Telephone Collectors' Techniques (PTCT) CD-ROM, available at the ACA Online Store at http://www.acainternational.org/store. And see the calendar on page 13 for a list of upcoming dates and locations for Campus ACA's PTCT seminar.