Collectors Should be Commended for their Positive Efforts

If you haven’t heard, a winner was announced in the insideARM.com collector story contest. Irene H. who works for ARSI in Kansas wrote about helping a young couple achieve their goals through budgeting.

Congratulations to Irene. She exemplifies what’s great about our industry and should be commended for her efforts. Two things caught my attention from her entry and both are worthy of noting. First, she went beyond the call of duty as a bill collector – not once but twice – to help this couple get their financial lives in order by helping them prepare a realistic budget. Not to make light of Irene’s efforts, but I have visited hundreds of collection agencies and know from first-hand experience that this type of effort is demonstrated on a daily basis within agencies of all sizes and specialties. It is a shame this point is lost on too many reporters, the Attorneys General, and consumers who fear the debt collector because of the negative hype associated with their efforts.

Second, the last line of her entry reads “I’m very proud of what I do.” Awesome! Although Irene is now Vice President of Collections at ARSI, that sums up the feelings of most career collectors that I have spoken to who understand the power of their position and sleep well knowing they made a positive impact in someone’s life.

Recovery managers, collection managers, and other executives of ARM companies, here’s your call to action:  call a meeting, send an email to your collectors (or however you communicate these days) and tell everyone about Irene. Hold your own contest and display the winner in your entrance way. In other words, take some time to celebrate accomplishment in your workplace. Then go the extra step and send your stories into insideARM.com and flood their inbox so they are encouraged to run the contest again and again and again. Good things will happen.