Understanding the true 'value' of trace
Published Monday, 24th October, 2011
The adage ‘you get what you pay for’ applies to several areas of the collections world, but perhaps none more so than trace.
Given that tracing – or rather ‘mis-tracing’ – accounts for more than 90% of complaints reported to the Credit Services Association (CSA), you would have thought that ‘buying cheap’ was an anathema. But you would be wrong. Some organisations, it appears, are still prepared to put their businesses, and the well-being of their customers, at risk, even when they know that a professional tracing agent can do so much more to enhance their reputation, reduce the number of customer complaints and improve their collections performance.
So why should a business look beyond the ‘cost’ and understand more about the ‘value’ of using a professional trace operation?
Tracing agents have a responsibility that goes beyond a moral or ethical code; today, clients should demand that the information received by an agent is thoroughly and robustly checked. In the case of the lewis group's Glasgow-based trace operation, for example, we insist on a minimum of three different forms of ‘confirmation’ for every case we receive: a correlation between the electoral roll and the customer’s address; a valid telephone number/ex-directory number registered and current at that address; and confirmation of any existing credit agreements given for the named individual at that address, taken out within a defined time frame (no longer than six month’s old).
We are not simply using bureau data and returning results on a paper trail. Our team handles each case and if we can’t speak to the customer directly then we make the decision after discrete enquiries with a neighbour or relative to confirm the details we have are correct. We are able to produce a complete audit trail with full call recording at every stage of our trace process, with detailed notes to support our results.
When these checks have been completed, the agent writes a conclusion – an opinion that is backed up by hard evidence that doesn’t rely on hearsay; we never trust the information we receive from a single source without further validation. Success may be Resident as Stated (RAS), but even that requires the agent to be confident that the customer is still residing at the given address. Given the contentious nature of all RAS findings, these are all double-checked by a Senior Tracer or Team Leader to ensure the information is correct.
If we are unable to locate a customer the case is referred to a senior tracer to re-evaluate the case notes and review the process from beginning to end and ensure all avenues have been exhausted. It is not about ‘how quickly can we get the job done’ but rather ‘how certain are we of our findings?’ We know that a successful trace takes time, and this in itself helps with our own internal compliance: a case closed too quickly might suggest a decision made in haste, without sufficient checks being carried out. We monitor all such activities; we undertake monthly quality checking of our results based on random samples and conduct a full audit on all of our tracing agents’ activities on an annual basis.
A good tracing agent is well trained, well motivated, and meticulous in their attention to detail. They will know the strengths and merits of the different credit referencing agencies and how to get the best out of them, as well as having a ‘feel’ for when something isn’t right. It helps, of course, if they have the support of experienced management and best-in-class systems. In our case we use a proprietary technology that we believe is second to none: the one system manages the entire trace, allowing us to search for and compare archived cases and producing a highly detailed suite of management information, bespoke to our needs and the needs of our clients. Critically, it supports our agents by taking them through every stage of the process so that nothing can be left out, even to the point that a case cannot be closed (other than in exceptional circumstances, for example if the customer himself has made contact to confirm his details) unless all of the stages have been completed.
Successful tracing is not a matter of chance; it is as a result of having a robust and rigorous process, where accuracy and accountability are the watchwords. It is by following this approach that the lewis group achieves such impressive results, with consistently high values of pounds recovered versus pounds spent, and one of the lowest percentages of mis-traces in the industry – consistently less than a half of one percent!
You can always buy cheap, but the cost to your business in handling the subsequent complaints – and the cost to your reputation – can be incalculable.