SWBC Collections Success Story | Partners Financial Credit Union
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Outsourced Collections Success Story: Partners FCU

Learn how Partners FCU increased successful collections rates and reduced their volume of repossessions by 50%.

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Prior to partnering with SWBC, Partners FCU realized that they needed to do something to reduce delinquencies and the time employees were dedicating to the collections process. SWBC helped Partners reduce the volume of their repossessions by 50% by outsourcing their collections activity.

OBJECTIVES:

  • Reduce queue sizes for collectors
  • Be more strategic in leveraging internal staff
  • Manage growing spike in delinquencies specific to their indirect loan portfolio
  • Reduce time employees dedicate to the collection process
  • Reduce volume of repossessions
  • Reduce costs of collections efforts

SUCCESSES:

  • Deployed cost-effective collections strategy using scalable and technology-rich solutions
  • Quickly reduced delinquencies month after month
  • Dramatically reduced collectors' queue sizes, freeing up internal staff and reducing time employees spend focused on collections efforts
  • Reduce time employees dedicate to the collection process
  • Increased successful collections rates, reducing volume of repossessions by 50%

CHALLENGE:

When inefficiencies exist, one of the major challenges collections operations face is finding a streamlined and accurate way to deal with mounting queues. Prior to partnering with SWBC for outsourced collections, Partners FCU did not have an efficient way to handle a growing increase in delinquencies specific to their indirect loan portfolio. Their collectors’ queues were becoming unmanageable and they were not able to handle calling on 30+ accounts on a daily basis. They realized that they needed to do something to reduce delinquencies and the time employees were dedicating to the collections process.

As Mark Rodriguez, SVP and CLO at Partners FCU explains, “We were faced with a couple of options to address the increase occurring in their number of accounts per FTE. We could invest in augmenting our internal headcount to address an issue of uncertain duration, or we could effectively lower their accounts per FTE and be more strategic in how we leveraged our internal staff.”

Ultimately, outsourcing specific accounts to SWBC became the logical choice for managing their collectors’ queue sizes.

SWBC offers a scalable solution that saves our outsourced collections clients an average of 35-50% annually when compared to in-house efforts.

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THE SWBC SOLUTION:

Recovering funds that are past due is a detailed process. It can require hiring and training full-time collections staff or utilizing employees from different departments to work in a collections role.

Once they realized that partnering with SWBC would save the HR-related expense of hiring and training additional staff and also reduce other costs associated with the debt collection process, Partners FCU reached out to SWBC to help with their collections efforts.

After Partners FCU started using SWBC’s outsourced collections services, they pointed to four main business goals that they were able to accomplish through this partnership:

  • Implemented a cost-effective collections strategy using scalable and technology-rich solutions
  • Reduced delinquencies month after month
  • Dramatically reduced collectors’ queue sizes
  • Increased successful collections rates, reducing volume of repossessions by 50%

How SWBC Implemented a cost-effective Collections Strategy

Taking advantage of scalability to save on costs, SWBC deployed their collections personnel and resources to accommodate the ebbs and flows of the delinquent queues without being under or over-staffed at any one time. In addition, SWBC integrated a high percentage of part-time resources within their staffing model, further reducing the cost. SWBC utilized robust telephony and dialer technology to facilitate timely collections, allowing Partners FCU to reap all of the benefits of advanced technology without the expense of purchasing and implementing it internally.

“We have a great deal of trust that accounts assigned to SWBC will be worked in a compliant manner that is sensitive to the member experience”

–-Mark Rodriguez, SVP/CLO, Partners FCU

Quickly Reduced Delinquencies Month After Month

Because SWBC employs professionals who specialize in collecting, Partners FCU essentially gained a full-time staff of employees dedicated to recovering past-due funds on their behalf, during and outside of typical working hours.

The SWBC collections team was able to step in and get the job done efficiently because they know the best practices for collecting funds and have the experience and patience to handle certain situations that may arise in a professional, courteous manner. SWBC’s collectors also know the best (and most compliant) tactics for getting delinquent accounts up-to-date before they progress into the later stages of delinquency.

“Delinquency immediately reduced month after month after outsourcing to SWBC. We are currently sitting at a 10-year low.”

–-Mark Rodriguez, SVP/CLO, Partners FCU

Contact us today to learn how our flexible, compliant, cost-effective service could help your institution lower delinquencies and cut your collections costs.

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Dramatically Reduced Collectors' Queue Sizes

Partners FCU’s staffing model prior to outsourcing consisted of a few members of their staff focusing only a portion of their time collecting on delinquent accounts, allowing some to fall through the cracks and become extremely past due. The time their employees spent working in a collections capacity meant time not spent selling or generating new revenue.

When Partners started outsourcing its collections efforts, this gave them access to SWBC’s external staff of employees that were able to dedicate 100% of their time to collections efforts and get accounts cured as quickly as possible. This increased focus and time created a consistently shorter collections cycle and reduced the amount of time spent collecting on a delinquent account. It also allowed Partners’ staff to perform other tasks that improve service and borrower satisfaction, as well as dedicate more time, resources, and effort to reaching strategic goals.

“Partnering with SWBC has significantly impacted our employees and collections operation as a whole. Our collectors experienced a dramatic reduction in their queue sizes, resulting in reduced workload, improved efficiency, and less collector burnout.”

–-Jerad Broaddus, Vice President of Loan Services, Partners FCU

Reduced Volume of Repossessions by 50%

SWBC utilized resources in staffing and technology to help Partners FCU increase their collections rates, effectively decreasing the volume of repossessions by 50%. This helped improve both their balance sheet and their bottom line.

SWBC has a high utilization rate, meaning that the time our collectors are at their desk waiting for a dialer to present a call to them is very short. The dialer typically sends more than 100 calls per hour. In Partners FCU’s more manual environment they were capable of getting through about a quarter of that. SWBC’s team of collectors was able to make more calls per hour, creating more opportunities to talk to borrowers and more opportunities to cure the loan. 

In addition, SWBC’s right-party connect rate is higher than most providers in terms of the number of borrowers the collections team speaks with. This is due to the efficiency of the dialer technology and because of the fact that the collections agents are calling people when they are home—during the evening and on weekends.

With these improved efficiencies, Partners FCU was able to collect on more loans. With some additional updates to their collections strategy, this increased collections rate had a direct effect on the volume of their repossessions.

In Conclusion

When asked about their experience working with SWBC, Rodriguez said, "SWBC is easy to do business with, responsive to expressed needs, and offers a scalable solution. It often makes the most sense to leverage their resources from a cost and effort perspective relative to increasing internal investments. Even if there isn’t a strong need to have additional resources on hand to work the ebbs and flows of delinquency, having the connection to SWBC allows you to facilitate the assignment of work for business continuity purposes when impacted by unforeseen challenges to the business."

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