Platform2 min read
Closing the gap between a promise and the money
The promise-to-pay is the moment collections usually calls a win. The money arriving is a separate event, several days and several failure points later, and most of the loss happens in between.
A promise is not a payment. Between the borrower saying yes and the money reaching the account there is a gap, and everything that happens in that gap either helps or leaks. Most collections operations measure the promise carefully and the gap not at all, which is why kept-promise rates are so often worse than anyone expected.
Where promises leak
- The borrower intended to pay and forgot. The most common and the cheapest to fix.
- The payment method failed and nobody found out until the due date passed.
- The borrower could not work out how to pay, and did not call back to ask.
- The amount was ambiguous. Was it the instalment, the arrears, or the arrears plus charges?
- The money went somewhere unallocated and sat there, so the account still looks unpaid.
Send the way to pay while the conversation is still warm
The single most effective change most operations can make is to deliver a payment link during the call rather than after it. The borrower has the phone in their hand, the intent is at its peak, and the amount is fresh. Every hour that passes between the agreement and the ability to act on it costs conversion.
Reminders keyed to the promise, not the calendar
A reminder on the day before the promised date, and one on the morning of it, works because it is about a commitment the borrower personally made rather than a policy date they never agreed to. Both should carry the exact amount and the same link. The tone is a courtesy, not a chase, because at this point the borrower has done nothing wrong.
Reconciliation is part of collections, not accounting
A payment that arrives and is not matched to the loan is worse than no payment, because the borrower has paid and the system is still dunning them. That produces the angriest calls a floor takes, and every one of them is avoidable. Payments raised from a collections contact should carry the reference that ties them back to the account and the promise, and anything unmatched should surface as an exception somebody owns rather than sitting in a suspense account.
What to measure
- Kept-promise rate, by bucket and by how the promise was captured.
- Time from promise to payment, which tells you whether your reminders are placed well.
- Link click rate against payment completion, which separates a delivery problem from a payment-experience problem.
- Unmatched payments as a share of receipts. If it is not near zero, part of your floor is chasing money it has already received.