Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gene Daughtry on June 1, 2010 at 5:48pm

I believe so. I have 12 years of experience in BHPH and have worked with some guys that had 20 years experience before I met them. At delivery make sure to set the tone of collections. Stay after the customer, take away all objections to paying, test all lies. Offer to keep the vehicle until they can catch up, especially when they "have an issue" before a holiday or other situation (graduation, wedding, family death). This is just the beginning.

Permalink Reply by Rob Hagen on June 1, 2010 at 6:08pm

Gene, when do you recommend a collector first meet a customer?

Do you take online payments? How about partial payments?

Do you use payment assurance devices? If so, what type, GPS, Starter Interrupt or combo?

Just a few questions to get the conversation going.

Permalink Reply by Gene Daughtry on June 2, 2010 at 9:20am

Rob,
Our collector first meets a customer if that customer has an issue with their payment. We solve some issues over the phone but we generally ask the customer to come in and talk with the collector for arrangements. We do not take online payments. We do not take checks. We use debit/credit cards. We will take partial payments if the customer is giving us a reasonable reason and we have a plan to catch up. We do not use any devices. We are a little old school.

Permalink Reply by Rob Hagen on June 3, 2010 at 6:49pm

Gene,

Nothing wrong with old school if it works for you. The one thing I like to do differently is I like the collectors to meet the customer at time of closing when the customer is the happiest so the relationship gets off on the right foot. I like the collector to explain the warranty and any policies the dealership sees fit as well as explain the importance to keeping communication open.

Permalink Reply by Gene Daughtry on June 4, 2010 at 2:34pm

I agree about explaining everything. I do 95% of the closings and I give a straight forward explaination of our expectations.

Permalink Reply by Frank on December 8, 2011 at 2:48pm

What else does your collector go over at !st meeting?

Permalink Reply by Aaron Hershey on January 24, 2011 at 9:53pm

We began using GPS devices 1/1/2009 (Enfotrace). Now that we have 2 years under our belts, we have seen significant improvement in delinquency percentage as well as post repo collateral value.

 

Getting a vehicle back quickly after an account becomes delinquent allows for a much higher percentage of customers reclaiming these vehicles. Also, since we have GPS we have been able to negotiate a significant price break from our repossession company for recovering these units.

 

Another fun trick is to locate a customer's vehicle when they are delinquent and use that information to help collect. (ie- if customer car is at his mother's house and mom is one of his references, we just call mom immediately) A little sneaky, but it really hits home for a customer when you make a reference call and the customer is there.