Bill and Account Collectors

Job purpose

To locate and pursue customers with delinquent accounts, negotiate payment and record the status of collection efforts, so that overdue amounts are recovered or the account is properly passed on for repossession, disconnection or legal action.

Skills

• Command of the organisation's credit, sales and service contract terms and of collection procedure, with the law and regulation governing debt recovery, arithmetic for balances, interest and repayment schedules, accounting and banking practice, customer service principles, automated collection systems, and a careful written style. Secondary-level education is the norm, with substantial minorities holding some college courses or a bachelor's degree, and up to a year of on-the-job training.
• Confers with customers by telephone, letter or personal visit to establish why payment is overdue and to review the terms of sales, service or credit contracts, persuades them to pay amounts due on credit accounts, damage claims or dishonoured cheques or to return merchandise, advises them on the actions and strategies open to them, and answers questions about their accounts. Much of this is conducted with people who are angry or discourteous.
• Traces delinquent customers to new addresses through post offices, telephone companies, credit bureau and enquiries of neighbours, and judges from a customer's financial circumstances what repayment is realistic, negotiating credit extensions where warranted. Decides the point at which an unresponsive account is escalated. Precedent is available in company procedure and the escalation route is defined.
• Locates and monitors overdue accounts through automated systems, works an assigned caseload to repayment schedules and follow-up dates, and organises own priorities by the age of the debt.
• Seated telephone and computer work throughout, with occasional personal visits to customers' addresses. No handling or dexterity demands beyond ordinary keyboard use.

Responsibilities

• No supervisory responsibility. Works within a collections team and coordinates colleagues where accounts overlap.
• Receives payments and posts amounts paid to customer accounts, arranges debt repayment and establishes repayment schedules based on customers' financial situations, and negotiates credit extensions where necessary. Orders merchandise repossession or service disconnection and turns account records over to attorneys where collection fails. Sums recovered and terms conceded fall within company policy and defined limits.
• Ordinary care of a workstation and the automated collection systems used. No responsibility for stock or plant.
• Records the financial status of customers and the status of collection efforts, notifies credit departments, sorts and files correspondence, and performs administrative work on assigned accounts including recording address changes and purging the records of deceased customers. Contacts insurance companies on the status of claims payments and writes appeal letters against denials. The records are personal and financial, and are relied on in repossession and legal proceedings.

Effort required

• Repetitive casework requiring exactness in figures, dates and account histories, with a heavy volume of telephone and written contact and frequent decisions taken under time pressure across a caseload. An error carries consequences for the customer and for the organisation's results.
• Dealings with people who are unpleasant, angry or discourteous, and conflict about money — often with customers in real financial difficulty, and sometimes ending in repossession, disconnection or referral to attorneys. Requires composure, persistence and self-control in the face of hostility that is not personally directed.
• Seated at a workstation using the telephone and screen throughout the working day. No lifting or exertion.

Working conditions

• Indoor, environmentally controlled office with no physical hazard. The exposure is psychological rather than physical: sustained contact with people who are unpleasant, angry or discourteous, and recurring conflict situations over money.
• All incumbents work a regular established schedule and the standard week is forty hours. The work is time-pressured and repetitive, driven by the age of accounts, and decisions are frequent with effects that fall on colleagues and on results. Discretion is modest, exercised within company procedure and a defined authority to concede terms.