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The Credit and Collections Essentials for 2024

Welcome to

Webinar!

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Firstly, welcome!

This webinar is being recorded and will be available in the resources section 24 hours after the session and the slides will be shared.

We will discuss:

Essential skills for credit professionals in 2024
Setting personal development goals for 2024 and a resource to help you do so.
How to retain your staff in 2024
What organisations are doing to prepare for 2024
Top tips this year from CICMQ Accredited organisations.

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Essential Skills for 2024

Technical skills:

Law and Insolvency

Consumer Duty

Financial analysis

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Essential Skills for 2024

Interpersonal skills:

Emotional intelligence

Negotiation and support

Adaptable communication

Coupled with technical skills are my top 3 interpersonal skills for 2024.

We know a good credit and collections professional will already have core interpersonal skills in their arsenal – listening, questioning, empathy, but with AI covering many of the more straightforward situations, humans need to offer something beyond a scripted answer to a FAQ.

Emotional Intelligence is a skill that takes time to develop and must be actively practised, if the credit professional is to show emotional maturity and resilience.

Negotiation in the modern world is a far cry from coercion or back and forth offers. Creating collaborative wins that support both the business and the customer, is a highly technical skill worth honing.

And finally, adaptability. This means not only adapting during a conversation as it evolves, but also adapting the form of communication. With credit and collections teams hiding behind emails and customers avoiding phone calls, it’s time to step into new methods of communication and learn the skills needed to make them effective.

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Essential Skills for 2024

Strategic skills:

Agile working practices

Future proofed resource

Collaborative alignment

It’s not going to be enough to do what we’ve always done and expect to be successful in 2024. At a higher level, the function needs to set strategies that ensure the business and its credit and collections teams are successful and future proofed.

Learning agile working practices will allow us to identify changes before they arrive. Take automation and subsequent evolution of the credit and collections role in response.

This means having processes and people in place that can be agile, adaptable and skilled in handling evolving roles. Future proofing your resource means not only securing the right hardware, software and supporting products, It means having the right teams in place with the right set of skills.

These include more collaborative skills, that allow the department and those in it, to work more closely with the rest of the organisation, and align the approaches they make, to the overall strategy of the business. It takes skill to hone the overarching goals of a business into workable targets for the team, but CICM are here to help you learn them.

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How to set Personal Development Goals

Step 1: self assess

Step 2: define your personal objectives

Step 3: set your goals

Step 4: Review and plan

Use it to uncover your current strengths and skills, identify areas for improvement and then put in place a workable plan to achieve your objectives

Step 1 – Self Assessment

Begin by completing an honest appraisal of your current situation which will help guide you in forming your plan. If you are a CICM member, take the CICM Professional Skills audit first to identify personal career development recommendations (if we can link to PS here that would be great).

Step 2 – Personal Objectives

Building on Step 1, now you can think about your objectives over the short, medium and long term.

It helps to have one or two main long-term objectives, then break down the short and medium term objectives to help support your longer term aims. If, for example, your long-term goal is to become CICM qualified then the more immediate objectives might involve sourcing information on relevant qualifications, becoming a CICM member and then studying towards them. Similarly, if your long-term objective is career related, perhaps to move into a supervisory or management role within three years, your more immediate objectives could include going on relevant training courses and gaining leadership experience.

Step 3 – Set your goals

Now that you’ve defined your objectives, it’s time to put a plan in place. This section of the PDP helps you break down your objectives into manageable pieces which is a sure-fire way to help you achieve them. The plan is SMART by nature – for each line item, you’ll be thinking about what it is you want to achieve, how to achieve it, what resources you’ll need and when it is to be completed by.

Step 4 – Review and plan

The PDP is an evolving document – it can change and flex with you as you achieve your goals. By updating this final step with your ongoing success you’re building continuous improvement into your personal development. The sky’s the limit!

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Download the template

DOWNLOAD

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How to retain your staff in 2024

86% of millennials would not leave their current position if training and development were offered by their employer. (LinkedIn)

40% of employees who don't receive the necessary job training to become effective will leave their positions within the first year. (Shift eLearning)

Most (63%) UK workers agree that training and learning new skills helped them to develop themselves and their careers and guarded against feeling a disconnection from their employer. (Facilitiate Magazine)

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Let’s talk Qualifications

Range of qualification courses from entry level 2 through to degree level 5

Cover a wide range of credit, collections, enforcement and debt advice subjects

Can be undertaken using classroom learning, supported coaching or independently

Successful candidates gain recognised, accredited qualifications.

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Let’s talk Training

Delivered face to face, by virtual platform and through on-demand pre-recordings

Run time ranges from 25 minutes to multi day courses

Gold standard training by trainers, who are qualified and experienced in the subject

Practical training covering all or part of the order to cash cycle

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Working closely with our Sales and Business development teams to identify areas of growth and how we can support/mitigate risk and effective collections with options

Managing cost base, keeping close to our customers, simplifying process and automating where possible

Reviewing all our processes, what can we automate, and can we make the onboarding process more efficient.

Investing in staff training and development, particularly in areas like technology, customer service, and sustainability, to ensure a skilled and motivated workforce.

How others are preparing:

Our partners and CICMQ Accredited companies have said they are:

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In challenging times, prioritise sustainable payment plans and propensity assessments for customer support. Maintain close connections with clients and provide business-led options, anticipating an extended tough economic climate.

Keep agile, be proactive not reactive, look for potential roadblocks before you reach them

Prioritise adaptability and continuous learning. The rapidly changing economic landscape, technological advancements, and evolving customer expectations require businesses to remain flexible and adaptable.

Top Tips for 2024

Our partners and CICMQ Accredited companies have said:

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Download the full resource:

DOWNLOAD

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