My Thoughts On COVID-19 And The New ARM Industry That Will Evolve
This is the time for leaders to rapidly adapt all aspects of their strategies and operating models to meet the current environment and budget constraints. This crisis is not restricted to borrowers but also has significant impacts on the employees of lenders and the lenders themselves.
Lending institutions are dealing with numerous threats at once, not just related to rate of enlarged delinquency but also liquidity issues, public-relations difficulties, and employee concerns. Now is the time to abandon traditional decision-making processes and to react instead with innovative ideas, the world has changed. The good thing is this crisis gives you time to make new decisions and to restructure your 2020 budget. Time to rethink all your business strategies and partners.
We must make swift decisions that help us ramp up digital collections while using the limited resources available in these challenging times. With budgets blown out of the water we will need to operate with the bare essentials. Creditors and their outsource partners must work together to create fulfillment channels.
We need to anticipate having constraints on outbound dialing after this crisis is over so we must embrace non phone collections. Emails and SMS messaging volumes must be boosted, and outbound calls decreased. The quality of calls whether inbound or outbound must increase. Training will be imperative in the new world. Listening skills will be imperative and showing empathy will be simpler as we all all in this crisis together.
Settlements and concessions will be a thing of the new world and clients will have to work with their outsourcers to create these programs.
Since this crisis comes with time, this is the time to make sweeping changes in business strategies and to properly allocate the limited budgets and resources you will have going forward. Take time look at each line item in your budget and slash and many as possible. Then figure out how to reduce the rest by using cheaper labor, more non phone collections, emails and SMS communications, omni-channel options and things yet to be discovered.
Be Safe,
Phillip W. Duff
