How do you close the gap between your top collectors and the rest of the floor?

The short answer

Start by checking the gap is real, because part of it may be the accounts each collector was given. Then find where it sits. In our experience most collectors don’t trail the best on everything: they trail on particular kinds of account, and match or beat them on others.

Coach on those kinds of account, aim most of the coaching at the middle of the floor, and give collectors structured time to learn from colleagues who do better on the same paper. Don’t close the gap by handing the top collectors more of the best accounts, and don’t rank everyone on one number.

First, check the gap is real

A top collector’s lead can be partly the paper. In our experience, a collector who works fresh, large balances will often out-collect one who works aged accounts that have already been through two agencies, whatever their skill. Compare collectors on similar accounts, over months rather than weeks, before you decide how big the gap is. Is it the collector or the accounts?

Find where the gap sits

Split each collector’s results by kind of account: balance, age of the debt, how many agencies have worked it, the client. In our experience the gap between a top collector and an average one is usually large on a few kinds of account and small or reversed on others. Those few kinds are where coaching will pay. Why collectors convert at different rates.

Coach the middle of the floor first

In our experience, managers often spend their coaching time on the very best and the very worst. Writing in Harvard Business Review (2011), Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson of the Corporate Executive Board reported research involving thousands of sales reps. They found coaching had a marginal effect on either the weakest or the strongest performers, and that the bottom 10% are more likely a poor fit for the role. The payoff was among the middle 60%, the core performers, where the best coaching can improve performance by up to 19%, with performance defined as a rep’s gap to goal (percentage of quota attained).

That research is on sales teams, not collection floors. In our view the lesson carries over: the middle of the floor is where most of the room is, and where coaching on particular kinds of account is most likely to move the floor’s total.

Let collectors learn from each other

In our view, the floor’s own best collectors are often its best teachers. In a field experiment at a sales company, Jason Sandvik, Richard Saouma, Nathan Seegert and Christopher Stanton (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2020) encouraged workers to seek advice from a randomly chosen colleague during structured meetings. Average sales rose by more than 15%, the gains lasted at least 20 weeks after the experiment ended, and the gap between workers narrowed. The NBER summary adds that the largest gains went to workers matched with high-performing colleagues.

That experiment was in a sales firm, not on a collection floor. On a collection floor, in our view, that means:

• Pair by kind of account. A collector who trails on one kind of account sits with, or listens to calls from, the colleague who leads the floor on exactly that kind. Can the Floor Assessment help coach collectors?
• Make it structured. A short, regular meeting with a clear question usually works better than "ask if you need help".
• Give it time on the schedule, so neither collector loses money for taking part.

What not to do

• Don’t give the top collectors more of the best accounts. In our view it widens the gap, leaves the rest of the floor on the hardest paper, and teaches nobody anything. Should your best collectors get every account?
• Don’t rank everyone on one number. In our experience a raw leaderboard ranks the paper and the luck as much as the people. What a fair collector scorecard measures.
• Don’t coach on everything at once. Pick the one or two kinds of account each collector works most often and trails on.

Check that it worked

Look at the same collector, on the same kind of account, a few months later, compared with the floor on that kind of account. If several collectors are coached at once, keep a comparison group that isn’t, so a good month for the whole floor isn’t mistaken for the coaching. How to raise collections per agent.

Where agent matching fits

In our view, coaching narrows the gap on the kinds of account a collector trails on, and agent matching works on the other side: sending each account to the collector best placed with it, so each collector works more of the accounts they already do well on. BestPair sends each account to the eligible collector who has done best with accounts like it, from the floor’s own call and payment history, inside the rules and workload limits the agency sets, and measures the result against a control group.

Sources

• The Dirty Secret of Effective Sales Coaching: Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, Harvard Business Review, 31 January 2011; research on sales reps. Dixon of the Corporate Executive Board’s Sales and Service Practice, Adamson of the Sales Executive Council.
• Workplace Knowledge Flows: Jason Sandvik, Richard Saouma, Nathan Seegert and Christopher Stanton, Quarterly Journal of Economics 135, 2020; a field experiment at a sales company. NBER working paper summary.