Debt Collection Agent Job Description, Key Duties and Responsibilities

Debt Collection Agent Job Description, Key Duties and Responsibilities

This post provides exhaustive information on the debt collection agent job description, to help you learn the type of work they do.

It presents the key duties, tasks, and responsibilities that typically make up the debt collection agent work description in most companies.

It also shows the major requirements most recruiters will expect you to meet if you are seeking the debt collection agent role.

Please, continue reading to increase your knowledge of the debt collection agent career:

What Does a Debt Collection Agent Do?

A debt collection agent is responsible for interacting directly with customers to take debts and come up with a plan to resolve outstanding balances, as he/she acts as a liaison between a business and its customers.

The debt collection agent job description entails assisting a business or an organization to contact debtors and claim outstanding debts towards their creditors, and ensuring that the money owed is recovered in as little time as possible.

It also involves monitoring assigned accounts to identify outstanding debts, coming up with a plan and taking action to recover outstanding payments, and finding and contacting debtors to investigate about their payment status.

Debt collection agents carry out several important daily activities, including communicating with customers, usually with the use of a telephone, to devise a way to resolve delinquent accounts and collect payment on debts.

They must interact with customers to understand the reasons for their late payment.

They are also saddled with the responsibility of negotiating and settling a debt in such a way that they develop plans that eliminate the debt of a customer and also enabling the customer to manage the debt, averting the account from falling into delinquency again.

Another task that commonly makes up the debt collection agent work description is to keep detailed records of all customer communications or payment plans with the use of relevant materials.

A debt collection agent may also use relevant computer software to manage customer records and maintain oversight of debit balances and received payments.

He/she must ensure that records are entered, updated, and maintained accurately throughout all debt collection processes.

Additionally, a debt collection agent must research and find the locations of customers who are in debt to commence with the debt recovery process.

He/she is required to be skilled at researching and processing large volumes of information to keep accurate records of a debtor’s address and phone number, as this will support his/her debt recovery efforts.

Individuals interested in becoming a debt collection agent is required to possess certain skills and qualities, such as excellent persuasion skills, good communication skills, customer service, patience and diligence, good organizational skills, emotional intelligence, and good time management skills.

In terms of academic qualifications, individuals seeking this debt collection agent job needs at least a High School diploma to qualify for the position.

Several years of proven experience in a related field is also required by some employers.

Debt Collection Agent Salary: The average salary for a debt collection agent is $52,000.

Debt Collection Agent Job Description Example/Sample/Template

The following are major tasks, duties, and responsibilities that typically constitute the debt collection agent job description:

• Monitoring assigned accounts to identify outstanding debts
• Overseeing and tackling questions or complaints that customers may have
• Carrying out investigations and coming up with plans to resolve discrepancies
• Negotiating payoff deadlines or payment plans
• Adhering strictly to customer policies and procedures
• Closing a specific number of collection accounts in a specific amount of time to meet the assigned target
• Locating and interacting with debtors and implementing repayment schedules and terms
• Keeping and maintaining debtors’ book to ensure that the debt status is accurate and up-to-date.

Debt Collection Agent Job Description for Resume

If you have worked before as a debt collection agent or are presently working in that role and are making a new resume, you will need to add the professional experience section to it to make it more appealing to recruiters.

The professional or work experience section of your resume gives you the opportunity to highlight the duties and responsibilities that you performed working as a debt collection agent or that you are currently performing.

Since most recruiters love to hire people with relevant experience for a job, your resume will be more compelling to them if the new position that you are seeking requires the debt collection agent work experience.

You can make a powerful professional experience section for your resume by applying the debt collection agent job description example above.

Debt Collection Agent Requirement – Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities for Career Success

If you are applying to work as a debt collection agent, the following are major requirements most recruiters may want you to meet to be invited to an interview:

• Customer service skills, since a debt collection agent serves as the customer-facing representative of his/her organization
• Patience and diligence which is very important when a debt collection agent is tracking down individuals that are supposed to pay off a debt, as customers may avoid calls from a debt collection agent or hang up
• Good communication skills, since a debt collection agent is required to locate and interact with customers in debt via the phone or by visiting them
• Excellent negotiation skills which enable a debt collection agent to devise a means for customers to resolve their debts
• Good time management skills, as he/she is required to recover debts within a given period
• At least a high school diploma and previous years of proven experience in a related field.

Conclusion

If you are a recruiter or employer needing to hire a competent individual for the debt collection agent position in your organization, you need to make and publish a description of the role for interested individuals to know the type of functions they will be expected to carry out if hired.

This information will be useful to prospective candidates for them to carry out a self assessment of their suitability for the debt collection agent job in your company, and to decide if they can succeed in it.

This will help you to attract the best qualified candidates for the vacant debt collection agent position in your company.

This post is also helpful to individuals interested in the debt collection career; they will be able to learn all they need to know about what an agent does.