Bottrell Accountants, Financial Planners & Tax Agents

4 Tips for Hiring a Debt Recovery Firm

It happens in every business an industry- debt recovery.   You’ve called. You’ve emailed. You’ve sent letters through the post.  It’s at this point that businesses should start considering turning to a debt collection firm. These businesses specialise in collecting what needs to be paid. They understand what works. However, because of the vast number of debt collectors, it can be difficult to find the best one for you.

The following are some top tips to guide you through this process:

Research

Investigate what industries the firm specialises in, or at least has experience in. You should also explore whether the firm mainly works with commercial or consumer debt and if they have experience dealing with the type of debt associated with your industry.

Bigger firms can typically handle bigger and more debt recovery cases. Just be sure that they aren’t too big, leading to a poor personal business relationship and poorer quality service. If they can handle your case load and utilise state of the art technology, you can be more secure in the firm’s financial stability, scalability, efficiency, effectiveness, and customer service.

Finally, before you decide on a firm, be sure to look at their history. This indicates that they provide good returns, understand the regulations in your industry, and are familiar with various collections procedures. They probably have a system in place for their collections that has been slowly perfected and will reliably achieve the results that they promise. Another beneficial aspect of a collections firm with a history is that they know how to adjust to regulatory and technological changes without disrupting their current operations—meaning no surprises for them or for you.

Contingency Costs And/Or Fixed Fees

It’s never a wise choice to go with the cheapest firm.  But when looking at a firm’s fees and costs, you need to dig a little deeper because how agencies charge for their services can differ.

Some firms will have a contingency fee. In other words, if the firm doesn’t collect the debt then they won’t charge you. If they do collect the debt, they’ll generally charge a percentage of the amount collected. It’s also important to remember that a firm may not have a set contingency fee.

Other firms may provide fixed fee debt collection services. This usually starts with a small fixed fee for a letter before action… Some firms offer options to be charged either a fixed fee or a contingency fee. The choice would be yours.

Review The Process

To ensure that the firm is a good fit for your debt recovery needs, you should take a look at their practices. Do they start small and then expand their efforts? This would look like sending letters and making phones calls. If no progress is made, a transition to legal proceedings is made. The use of tracing is also a good indicator of how effective the firm’s collection services will be. This method enables them to find debtors who have moved addresses and changed phone numbers.

Check For Insurance, Licensing, And Compliance

You don’t want to work with a firm that isn’t compliant with national regulations. This includes fair practices, telephone consumer protection practices, medical collections privacy practices, proper licensing and more. But to cover all of your bases, you should check to see if they are insured and regulated.

It can also be a good idea to see if there are any testimonials or recommendations from businesses that have used their services before. This is a perfect way to understand how their practices could affect your reputation. It’s best to partner with an agency that avoids harassment, using profane language, or calling at inappropriate times of the night or morning.

If you need a debt collector and don’t know where to start give us a call and we can point you in the right direction.

Call our office on 49336888 and ask about debt collection services.

www.bottrellbusiness.com.au

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