How to Act When a Debtor is Hiding

A large percentage of the time, a debtor’s strategy is to avoid conversing with us. They implement this strategy for a variety of reasons.

Fear

Some debtors would rather not know what could potentially happen as a result of not addressing their obligation, and if they don’t pick up the phone, they never get to find out what the possible consequences of their actions are. For some, not knowing is a better option than knowing.

Creating Doubt

By their not answering the phone, we don’t have the full picture of where things stand on the debtor’s end, and in their minds that hinders our ability to make a decision on the best next step to take on behalf of our clients.

They Don’t Care

By not answering, we can’t influence their “don’t care” mindset. Catch them off guard on a different number – or the right number! – and you can change that.

There are more reasons than the three listed above, but the bottom line is the debtor who opts to not pick up the phone cannot be influenced if we do not talk to them.

More often than not, the only way to get them on the phone is to catch them off guard by calling them on a number they don’t expect us to, e.g. a night call to a home phone number or (for a small business) a spouse’s number. If you were a small business owner, and your significant other received a voice mail message on their cell phone, wouldn’t you call the creditor back? We are never aggressive, confrontational or over the top – but our expertise built up over many years of dealing with every type of scenario means we’re acutely aware that sometimes invasive tactics such as this will make debtors sit up and take notice.

In instances where a business owner has been ignoring calls and our skip tracing analysis includes access to alternative numbers, they are certainly worth calling.

We are in the job of influencing people to pay. Part of that process is finding correct numbers and getting the decision maker on the phone. It pays to be creative.

Want to learn more about how we can put our experience and creative thinking to work in order to reach your debtors effectively? Get in touch with us.