Collection Agencies Explore Empathy As A Way To Get Debtors To Deliver

The Collections industry’s tactics may be taking a turn for the….better? In light of a number of recent lawsuits against debt collection agencies, ACA International, the largest trade group of professional creditors and collectors, says more and more collection companies are working towards training collectors to take a more empathetic position.

Empathy could just be the practice that can turn the industry around. Many consumers are being called by various collections agencies, and if they do get money, they aren’t going to want to give it to the aggressive threatening collector, they will give it to the person they can work with.

As agencies are working on training courses to include techniques on how to be gentler with people who owe money, a focus is being put on coaching, mentoring and counseling debtors, rather than aggressively threatening them. Collectors in training are encouraged to reflect on their personal experiences with collectors or someone that they know has dealt with them.

A recent trend in the industry has been to suggest that debtors talk to their parents or grandparents about taking out a loan against their life insurance policies or reverse mortgage against their house. Those who practice this technique allege that our grandparents remember the Great Depression. They may not want this generation to feel that kind of pain and may be more apt to take a loan against the life retirement account or the life insurance policy.

Collectors who adhere to this philosophy think that it is in actuality a positive thing. They claim that it doesn’t hurt anyone. If a person borrows against life insurance it might be preferable to borrowing against a 401(k) or a retirement plan. That is because the person will be counting on that money to live on.

Right or wrong, it would do the collections industry a large amount of good to reassess its situation, and look for new innovative ways to collect in a today’s recession.

Mallory Megan is employed by a debt collection agency. Also she writes stories on business and finance, consumer spending and collection agencies.