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A Foundation of TrainingA Foundation of Training Building for New Heights

in Your CollectionsRandy Kamm

The CBE Group, Inc.

Session DescriptionSession Description:: A Foundation of TrainingA Foundation of Training

This session provides examples of how a third party collection firm hires, trains and motivates its collectors and management team to maximize collections, maintain compliance, enhance customer satisfaction, minimize complaints and reduce turnover. With training resources more limited than ever in the government revenue agency environment, it’s increasingly difficult to operate and maintain an effective, motivated and productive collection team.

Use these ideas to help organize, build and sustain a training and development environment that will help you reach new heights in collection – even in these challenging budgetary times.

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“When asked for the top five factors that led from mediocrity to excellence

one leader summed it up:

One would be people, two would be people,

three would be people, four would be people

and five would be people.”

Good to Great

Jim Collins, Good to Great

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Turn the flywheel!

“Good to great comes about by a cumulative process –step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn

by turn of the flywheel – that adds up to sustained and spectacular results.”

Jim Collins, Good to Great

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Row, row your boat!

Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

“If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate

any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

Collections is…One Heart, One Mind…One Payment at a Time!

Anonymous

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“Success Factors” for hiring, developing and motivating collectors

• Building for new heights in your Collections– Know what you want to build– Choose people who fit– Provide solid footing with effective training – Build strong leaders to offer support– Maintain, repair, enhance continuously

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Know what you want to build

• We want to achieve exceptional results in every aspect of our operation and service– Constantly stronger collections– Excellent customer service– Superior compliance– Zero complaints– Much enhanced employee retention

• We want every employee to understand how his or her actions help us achieve exceptional results

• We want every employee to know we want to help them succeed

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Do your employees know the plan?

If your people don’t know what they’re being asked to do, what you do as a manager won’t matter.

“Even Alice in Alice in Wonderland, learned that. When she came to a fork in the road, she found the Cheshire Cat sitting there. She asked him, ‘Which road should I take?’ ‘Where are you going?’ asked the cat. ‘I don’t know,’ said Alice. ‘Then it doesn’t

matter,’ the cat was quick to reply.”

Ken Blanchard, Whale Done

COLLECTAt CBE we will…

“…offer a life preserver of help and hope to each other, our clients and customers. We will all be committed to

doing the right thing!”

• Being a collector is a tough job • Keeping collectors engaged and productive is essential

for strong collection performance, superior customer satisfaction and peerless compliance

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CBE’s Core Values

• Integrity, Respect, Innovation, and Continuous Improvement– Provide a common language for all employees– Point to expectations– Clarify what is most valuable to the organization– Drive our people to “do the right thing” because they

receive respect, understanding and support within the CBE organization

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Do the Right Thing…Every Day!

• We take care of our people so they’ll want to and are able to do the right thing – on the phone, for our clients, with each other, and in our community

• We’ll generate exceptional results because we treat consumers with uncommon respect and professionalism

• We’ll change the perception of debt collection• We’ll create a new collection paradigm built on our

Core Values

COLLECTIntegrity

The ripple starts with me!We conduct our business in accordance with the highest standards of professional behavior. We are accountable to live up to our commitments. We are in a climate of open, honest, and ethical behavior in all of our interactions with each other, clients, vendors and the public

COLLECTRespect

Every person matters!

We always treat others as they would like to be treated. We believe it is vital to capitalize on each individual’s unique talents and honor diverse work styles. We operate in a climate of openness and trust in which each of us freely grants others their entitled respect, cooperation, and decency.

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Innovation

Riding the wave!

We accept change as the rule, not the exception, and create an environment in which individuals thrive and creativity is valued. We anticipate change, shape it to fit our purposes, and act as its agent.

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Continuous Improvement

Charting our own course!We embrace a total quality management philosophy and continuous improvement initiatives. We will guide each other through uncharted waters and become the leader in changing the collection industry. We are not afraid to stand alone if it is the right thing to do.

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Choose People who Fit Your Organization & Values

• Right Bus• Right Seat• Right Fit

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Stay focused on the goal

• Recruiting, training and motivating people is comprehensive, incremental and coordinated – Identify people’s strengths and develop support

departments– Encourage teambuilding, collaboration and cooperation in

all parts and all levels of your organization– Constantly focus on communication and employee

engagement – Identify and resolve conflicts along the way– Seek continuous, incremental improvements

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Hire for Talent, Train for Skill

• Past experience isn’t everything• Tough to change heart and attitude• Do all you can to ensure the right fit– Prescreen– First Interview– Second Interview– Reference Check– Background Check

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Selecting Talent

• Talent outperforms your expectations• Talent outperforms experience• Need for each manager to understand his or her own

talents and non-talents as a filter (prism) on the world • Talent is just like a fingerprint – Unique!

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Use a Strengths-based approach

• Identify, appreciate and capitalize on each employee’s unique strengths

• Set the goal and recognize people will get there differently

• Individuals don’t need to be well-rounded but teams do

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Now, Discover Your Strengths

• Each employee knows his or her unique strengths and strength zone

• Every person in the company knows everyone else’s strengths too!

• My strengths are:– Relator– Adaptability– Strategic– Futuristic– Arranger

Tom Rath, Strengths Finder 2.0

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• Most common strengths for all CBE Employees– Achiever– Responsibility– Strategic– Adaptability– Relator

• Most common strengths for Collectors– Achiever– Strategic– Responsibility– Adaptability– Empathy

Now, Discover Your StrengthsTom Rath, Strengths Finder 2.0

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Provide solid footing for Effective Training

• Time spent training up front reduces time to “rebuild” later

• Hire the best trainers you can and reward them• Provide ongoing support for your new hires as well as

veteran collectors• Invest time, energy and money necessary to

document and maintain your SOP system• Refuse the temptation to rush to the phone!

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Lay the groundwork

• Provide clear authority and responsibility for training, teambuilding & leadership development

• Create organizational development department that fosters:– Training at all levels of organization– Enhancement of corporate culture and core values

• Resource and target your training efforts– Expanded staff dedicated to training from 1 to 8.5

employees• Tear down “training” silos and build cross functional

teams that share the passion for training and development

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Tear Down Silos – Create Cross Functional Teams

Operations

Organizational DevelopmentCompliance

Collector Development

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Actively Disengaged

or Bitter 16%

Not Engaged or Neutral

63%

Engaged or Sweet Spot

21%

Hit the mark for each employee

“…Retired On Active Duty”

“Show me the Money!”

“The Improvement

Zone!”

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Engagement

• Seek out and engage employees who freely and willingly offer discretionary effort

• Collectors who “Go the extra mile” to help debtors find lasting payment solutions drive performance: – Stronger revenue growth– Lower costs– Reduced turnover and absenteeism– Increased creativity and innovation– Positive culture– Extraordinary performance results for clients

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Key Elements of Engagement

• Understand employees’ different “learning styles” and how to engage their differences

• Emotional– I care about the future of my organization– I’m proud to work for this organization– My organization inspires me

• Rational– I understand how my department contributes to organizational

success– I see how my role impacts the organization– I am willing to put in extra effort for organizational success

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Training Modules

• New Hire Classroom Instruction: (Three weeks)– Orientation and company history, FDCPA, State laws,

Privacy Act and all other regulatory requirements, client specific requirements, collection system instruction, listening and collector talk off strategies and techniques

– Teambuilding exercises – Rigorous testing

• New Collector Training Bay: (Eight weeks) – Matched with experienced collectors & managers to build

confidence and experience

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Training Modules

• One-on-one Instruction: (New and experienced employees)– Role play, live borrower calls, review recordings of

contacts as well as providing direction for improvement. Allows collectors to “hear themselves” as well as learn from others

• Monthly Training: (By business unit) – Changes in regulatory requirements, laws and new

customer requirements• FDCPA, Privacy and Security Safeguards:– Required twice a year for every employee

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Training Modules

• REACH: Real Experimental Adventures for Change and Hope (Supervisory & Management Team) – Week-long off-site, provides cooperative problem-

solving, strategic thinking, conflict resolution, relationship-building, personal risk-taking, trust enhancement, understanding & appreciation of individual strengths.

– Improves communication, reduces conflict & helps team focus on collecting and resolving accounts

• CBE University: (Offered to all employees) – Enhances general and leadership skills.

• Testing & Certification Roster: – All employees sign training and testing certification

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Build strong leaders to offer support

Why develop the leadership team?• Great leaders discover what’s unique about each

employee and they capitalize on it• Successful managers figure out how to incorporate

people’s differences into the overall plan • Leaders build trusting relationships between other

management team members that foster success• People join companies, but they quit managers

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Manager Selection

• Choose manager candidates who want to develop people

• Seek those with “Servant Leadership” experiences• Best collectors don’t always make great managers• Frequent past behavior indicates future behavior

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Maintain, Repair, Enhance Continuously

• Communicate your expectations and requirements• Inspect what you expect• Review, Remind, Reinforce• Look for ways to make your concepts “sticky”– Coaching– Stories– Activities

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Success is in the Details

• Daily training opportunities• One-on-one coaching (supervisor/trainer)• QA monitoring• Compliance Chat• Comprehensive SOPs accessible to all personnel

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Daily Training Opportunities

• Create a “learning and teaching” environment where training opportunities & successes abound every day– “Hot Topic” Compliance training focused on collectors

doing the right thing on every collection call.– “Core Competencies” Training focused on the skills

necessary to be successful in a collection position.– Reinforce Client Specific requirements – Reward positives as well as focus on improvement areas

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Quality Assurance Monitoring

• 100% call recording supports QA monitoring• Cross functional teams jointly evaluate & score calls– Operations– Compliance– Organizational Development

• Seven calls from every collector at CBE each month– Scoring– Best Practices– Areas of Opportunity– Compliance trends inform and enhance future training

• Close cooperation between Ops/Compliance/OD

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Compliance Chat

• Online Q&A “chat” resource • Employees prefer communicating via “Chat”• Compliance team available via online chat function to

respond to questions• Opportunity to continuously teach the “why” and

“how” behind procedures and requirements• Reinforces use of SOPs to ensure accuracy and

compliance

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Proof’s in the PuddingTop 10 Competitive Rankings

IRS 1 out of 2 PCAs in 8 out of 9 ranking periods

Quality Scores + Recovery

Treasury – FMS 4 out of 5 PCAs (Best new PCA since 2006)

Cumulative Recovery

Department of ED 5 out of 12 PCAs (Best new PCA since 2004)

Cumulative Recovery + Administrative Resolutions

Major Bankcard 1,2 or 3 in five different markets out of 8 PCAs

1-3 month cumulative performance

Regional Utility 2 out of 3 PCAs in 2 markets Most recent 6-month

Municipal Utility 1 out of four PCAs Most recent 6-month

Regional Utility 1 out of three PCAs Monthly netback formula

Satellite TV 2 out of 4 PCAs 9 month effective rate

Nationwide Telecom 1 out of 3 PCAs Cumulative liquidation %

NationwideTelecom 1 out of 3 PCAs Cumulative liquidation %

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IRS Private Debt Collection Program

• $82.5 million collected in 30 months• 27% or 53,991 of accounts resolved (out of nearly

200,000 accounts placed) • Independent “taxpayer satisfaction” survey scores – 99% (Regulatory, procedural and customer accuracy)– 99.4% (Timeliness of collection actions)– 99.9% (Professionalism)– Less than one-half percent asked to be returned to IRS– Virtually no cases identified as validated complaints (six

accounts)– Comparable IRS scores ranked in 60% range

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Presentation Summary

• “Success Factors” for training, motivating and developing employees– Know what you want to build– Choose people who fit– Provide solid footing with effective training – Build strong leaders to offer support–Maintain, repair, enhance continuously

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The CBE Group, Inc.The CBE Group, Inc.

The CBE Group is a privately held, 76-year old debt collection firm driven to do the right thing for our customers, consumers, employees and community. CBE is headquartered in Waterloo, IA with additional operational centers in Atlanta, Kansas City, and West Des Moines, IA. More than 1000 employees serve the debt recovery needs of more than 900 clients in the Government, Financial, Healthcare, Education, Telecommunications and Utility industries.

Visit us at: www.cbegroup.com

COLLECTA Foundation of TrainingA Foundation of Training

Thank You!Randy Kamm, Vice President Government Service

The CBE Group, Inc.rakamm@cbegroup.com

319.226.5176