Proactive or reactive, is the industry doing enough?
Experts from across the sector discussed strategy, resilience and uncertainty in the collections environment at Intrum’s London conference on outsourcing earlier this month.
“People have outdated views of outsourcing. You need to get people on board by evidencing what can be done,” Jon Betts said as he presented the lender’s perspective.
A common misconception a few years ago was that the customer experience might suffer if you outsourced, but that’s not true. If you design a customer process with your partner it can be very effective and can lead to really good customer outcomes.Jon Betts, Retail Operations Director at Close Brothers
Betts highlighted flexibility, customer experience, certainty of cost, technology and operational resilience as key benefits of an effective outsourcing partnership. He said outsourcing is not a cheap option for Close Brothers, instead offering flexibility in a changing environment as well as access to investment in specialist collections technology.
Handling unexpected situations
“Partnering and retaining our own capacity means we have flexibility. When unexpected situations occur, we are more resilient,” he said, giving the Covid pandemic, the ‘great resignation’ and the current global and economic uncertainty as examples of this in action.
When it comes to designing a partnership, Betts said it was important to consider customers, colleagues and Close Brothers’ partners, seeking good control and consistency. He said access to technology as a service rather than taking on the burden of investment was a key attraction.
Technology is expensive for us to develop. Being able to deal with a partner and consume new technology as a service has been very effective.Jon Betts, Retail Operations Director at Close Brothers
Advice for other lenders
Betts advised others setting up outsourcing partnerships to ensure there are resources to manage the relationship, with dedicated third-party roles, established governance and workforce management. He added that quality assurance should build over time with effective feedback loops – while lenders should also think through the regulatory considerations of material outsourcing.
In terms of risks, he highlighted poor service provision and the evolving regulatory system. “You need to keep working to maintain standards and have a strong internal function for risk management.”
He added that Close Brothers would always consider outsourcing as a possible option when looking to expand its customer offering in future:
It gives us easy access to a bigger resource pool. Trying to build a big team in one location is incredibly difficult these days.Jon Betts, Retail Operations Director at Close Brothers
