by Art Hernandez; Vice President, Strategy; Billtrust
The following article originally appeared in the June 2020 issue of ICTF Magazine
Picture yourself 12 months from now. Looking back, what did you do professionally during the pandemic to put you in a position of resilience and success? Helping you elevate your role as credit and collections professionals is my passion. And during a crisis like this, your decisions take on an even greater importance. So, it’s time to shine and demonstrate your value!
Here are a few ways that you can continue to raise your profile, help generate much-needed revenue and make sure your buyers keep paying you. Because, in the end, we all want to protect our companies from losses and come out of the pandemic stronger than ever!
1. View yourself as an “account manager.”
That’s how your sales people think of themselves. So why not us? What we do is really human-centric and customer-centric… how are you going to build a system to more efficiently manage your customers when we’re working remotely? Can automation help?
2. Understand your risk profile and tolerance.
Credit decisions become very reactive if we don’t understand our overall risk profile and tolerance… how many high-risk prospects are we willing to take on in order to support that growth?
3. Assess payment behavior frequently.
There are two things that I think about in the customer life cycle… Is there a way that I can follow up with all the customers that are exhibiting bad behavior? No, and that’s where technology can help.
Payment behavior assessment should be done at high frequency, quarterly at minimum.
4. Mitigate risk with machine learning… but stay human!
At a high level, artificial intelligence (machine learning)… When a practitioner has selected a good technology, it’s an enabler for them to be able to accelerate their careers and drive effectiveness.
