Executive-Banking Operations-Collections

A collections agent will play a crucial role in our collection team working with customers whose accounts have fallen into arrears. They’ll help customers navigate their financial journey while empowering them to become better and move forward with credit. They'll engage with customers via the telephone, both inbound and outbound, providing assistance, solving problems, and ensuring satisfaction in every interaction.

We pride ourselves on fantastic customer satisfaction and quality of service, so attention to detail when following processes is important to us. We want people who can both empathize with and engage customers, listening to their issues and helping to resolve and find solutions to their problems or query, whilst looking to increase customer satisfaction, provide good outcomes and reduce customer complaints.

• Handling customer enquiries over the telephone, providing excellent service while ensuring compliance with internal processes and regulatory standards.
• Applying empathy and emotional intelligence to connect with customers, especially those in difficult or stressful situations, ensuring a positive experience and good outcomes.
• Negotiate payment and repayment plans, assessing customers' needs and financial circumstances, whilst addressing missed payments or arrears.
• Signposting customers effectively for external debt advice where necessary, explaining clearly the benefits these firms might be able to provide and how customers might go about contacting them.
• Promote digital self-service options (mobile app, digital messaging) and assist customers in overcoming any barriers to adoption.
• Resolve customer complaints efficiently, aiming to resolve issues on first contact, and escalate complex matters where necessary.
• Running through basic diagnostics to better understand the root cause of any issues and feeding back to enable us to fix things that matter for our customers seamlessly.
• Accurate data entry into systems and maintaining thorough records.
• Identifying issues and potential issues for customers and escalating, as appropriate, to the relevant team i.e. incident management.
• Identifying opportunities for process and service improvements and discussing these openly with your manager.
• Matric 
• Experience in a customer-focused job within a credit and/or financial services environment.
• Previous experience in a fast-paced Collections environment.
• IT Proficient in using laptops or desktop PCs and Microsoft applications.
• 1-2 years of experience making outbound calls or handling calls for UK clients
• Experience in debt collection in the banking sector would be considered a strong advantage
• FCA / FSCA exposure as part of the collection experience is desirable. 
• Proficient level of written and spoken English
• Active listening skills
• Assertive, empathetic, professional & courteous
• Ability to empathize with the customer
• Prioritizing customer needs
• Good problem solving , reasoning and analytical skills
• Negotiation and influencing skills
• Ability to deliver messages/responses in a clear and concise manner
• Basic knowledge of computers
• Preferably good typing speed and accurate system updating