Closing The Gap

This 12 month training program has been designed to address the ASIC report, Managing Debt Collection and Hardship Practices, for banks and finance companies to improve their approaches to customers in hardship. This includes prioritising empathetic and respectful communication and offering tailored solutions that reflect individual circumstances.  Included is how to identify subtle signs of customer vulnerability and address them effectively. 
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Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Month 4

Month 5

Month 6

Managing Your Mindset

ASIC PAIN POINT:
 • Customers feel judged and unheard

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Helps staff reduce biases and manage frustration.
• Builds an empathetic workplace culture to improve customer interactions.
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1.  Ego, Judgement and Frustration - mindsets that get in the way 

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2.  The Cobra customer - How to deal with an angry customer

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3.   Internal Curiosity - how to sidestep your ego, judgement & frustration

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4.  Dumping your potatoes - how complaining becomes part of team culture

Building Trust

ASIC PAIN POINT:
• Customers fear being judged and face barriers to accessing support.

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Teaches trust building strategies and how to overcome unconscious biases

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1.   Connect With Your Customer – How to build trust and likeability

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2.   Acknowledging Customer Effort – Know how to say thank you


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3.   Pre-judging the Customer – The psychology behind why we do it


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4.   Stranger Danger – Customers are ready for battle

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5.   Humanising the ID Process – How to appeal to customers

Empathy & Emotional Cues

ASIC PAIN POINT:
• Staff struggle to recognise and respond effectively to emotional cues.

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Builds empathy and trust to handle emotional conversations effectively
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1. Strategic Empathy – The centrepiece for managing conflict and emotion

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2.  Sympathy Rabbit Hole – Why you’re drowning in customer problems

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3.  Intent Statements – Why they build trust

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4.   Building an Empathy Statement – The formula to acknowledging customer emotion

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5.  Verbal nods and paraphrasing – The bread and butter of customer communications

Asking For The Money 

ASIC PAIN POINT:
• Lack of staff empowerment in navigating difficult conversations around payments.

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Equips staff with effective negotiation tools while remaining empathetic
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1.   Asking for the Money - Role playing the power of the pause

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2.   Collections and Negotiations – Kick starting the process

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3.   Confident Collections – Opening call killers that are a giveaway

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4.   We rely on customers - a strategy for telling without telling

Hardship & Vulnerability

ASIC PAIN POINT:
• Customers who are financially distressed or vulnerable.

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Teaches staff to adapt communication to meet the needs of vulnerable customers

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1.   What is Vulnerability? – To be human is to be vulnerable

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2. The Customer’s Backpack – What can impact a conversation

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3.  Customers with Poor Mental Health – How can we adapt 

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4.   Low Literacy in Australia – How it can impact our customer
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5.  Low Literacy Levels – How to adjust your conversation

Language Carries Energy 

ASIC PAIN POINT:

• Customers struggle with complex language and processes.

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Promotes respectful and clear communication to reduce customer frustration


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1.   Dirty Words – Using words customers don’t understand

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2. Impact of Dirty Words – How it can make someone feel stupid

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3.  Internal Language – How it creates a power imbalance 

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4.   Negative Language – Put it in the bin
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5.  Language Thermometer – Finding the balance with customers

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6.  Our Go-To’s – Language that gets us in trouble

Month 7

Month 8

Month 9

Month 10

Month 11

Month 12

Questioning Techniques 

ASIC PAIN POINT:
• Ineffective conversations lead to missed opportunities to uncover the root cause of hardship.

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Teaches effective questioning to identify and address customer needs
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1. Uncovering the Issue – Why framing is important

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2. Collections Conversations – The Art of questioning techniques

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3.  Negotiations – Understanding the payment hierarchy

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4. Collections Questions Menu – Choosing the questions that best fit the scenario

Objection Handling

ASIC PAIN POINT:

• Missed opportunities in managing emotionally distressed customers.

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Equips staff with tools to manage complaints and de-escalate emotional situations.


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1.  7 Spices of Complaint Handling – Steps to handle customer complaints

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2.  Handling the Emotional Customer – Which spices are best to use?


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3.  Handling the Customer Who Blames – Which spices are best to use?


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4. If You Continue the Language - There are better strategies than terminating the call

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5.  The Reset Technique – Managing the conversation that escalates

Empowering Staff Through Language

ASIC PAIN POINT:
• Rigid processes and language that distances customers from support.

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Encourages respectful and concise communication to build trust and cooperation
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1.  Avoiding accountability – Passively and actively

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2.  T’s and C’s – Why no-one reads them

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3.  Blaming Others – Why it is a problem

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4. Neutral Language – You, me and blame

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5.  Overtalking – Don’t steamroll your customers

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6. Chicken Salt – Season your language

Workplace Wellbeing

ASIC PAIN POINT:
• Staff burnout impacts their ability to handle vulnerable customers.

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Provides stress-management tools to enhance resilience and improve interactions.
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1.  Workplace Wellbeing – Influences and impacts

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2. Circle of Control – Where to focus your energy

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3. Flipping Your Lid – How to stay in control

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4. The Stress Bucket – How to stop it from overflowing

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5. Creating Good Habits – Support worklife balance and wellbeing

Maximising Payments 

ASIC PAIN POINT:

• Lack of clarity in customer options can create resistance.

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Provides tools for clear and empowering customer discussions around payment options


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1. Maximising Payments - Using timelines

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2.The payment Default - How to handle multiple unpaid arrangements

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3.  Willingness Vs Capacity - Why does it matter

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4. Willingness Vs Capacity - Questions you can use to filter out
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5. No Capacity to Pay – Where to from here?

The Solution + Consequences

ASIC PAIN POINT:

• Customers often feel overwhelmed by solutions and consequences.

LEARNING OUTCOMES ADDRESSED:
• Teaches strategies for presenting solutions clearly and truthfully, reducing resistance and building trust


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1. Social Norms - How to normalise things for a customer

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2. The Solution - Why to slow play it

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3. Options - Give the customer a sense of choice

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4. The Decoy Effect - How to influence customer decisions
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5. Explaining Consequences - Why using truthful language is the best strategy

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6. Benefits vs Consequences - Balancing them out

Created By

Jodie Bedoya

Director
Jodie Bedoya is the Founder and director of the Melbourne based training company, eMatrix, which she began after identifying a gap in practical training and guidance for frontline staff, team leaders and managers in the art of communication.

Jodie is one of Australia's leading collections, vulnerability and customer engagement specialists, who has trained best practice in the energy sector and held key executive, operational and training management roles, including as CEO of one of Australia's largest collection agencies.

Alex Daniel

Operations Manager
Alex's expertise within dispute resolution, call quality, hardship and process improvement has enabled him to find a unique balance in facilitation customer engagement, eliminating conflict and debt collection.

Alex has a background leading Complaints and Ombudsman teams for the energy sector, specialising in managing complex cases and assisting customers experiencing financial hardship. Alex's specialty is the art of communication, in particular understanding and applying strategic empathy, coaching programs for leaders, call calibration and business writing for the digital world we live in.

Kaelia Cockington

Training Consultant
With a background in psychology, developmental trauma and homelessness, Kaelia brings awareness to organisations about vulnerability and how best to navigate conversations for people with complexity.

Having managed teams in South Australian Housing responsible for managing both risk and vulnerability, including debt collection, Kaelia helps staff by creating context and understanding about what is happening for a customer, whilst teaching staff how to manage their own headspace and wellbeing.

Dr Paul Harrison

Consultant
Dr Paul Harrison is a Senior Lecturer and the Unit Chair of Consumer Behaviour in the Department of Marketing in Deakin Business School. Paul's research is focused on emotional and rational behaviour, and how our biology and the environment interact to influence the way we make decisions. His work has been published in a wide range of international journals and conference proceedings and has informed policy and business practice in Australia and internationally.