Category Archives: business ethics

Wescot | New Developments for Debt Recovery Firm

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With an evolving future for debt recovery, it is important that companies who operate in this industry do everything they can to adapt to the new changes and remain at the head of their game. One of the major factors that is affecting the industry at the minute is the change in regulations, as debt recovery now falls under the jurisdiction of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA have implemented a number of stricter rules to regulate the way companies operate when recovering debts for their clients. Furthwescoter to this is the decrease in average disposable income, which will increase the amount of time it takes for companies to recover debts and thus increase running costs. To overcome these obstacles, Wescot has changed the way they work in a variety of ways.

In businesses such as debt recovery, there is a need for a high volume of correspondence using traditional mail. A hard copy that informs customer that they need to repay their debt is far harder to ignore than an email that might never be read. The disadvantage to using letters is the cost of sending out large volumes, as well as the time it takes to create the mail. Adare is a company that has developed new software called ‘SmartEdit’ which dramatically reduces the time it takes to change small details on letters and therefore speed up the delivery. The debt recovery company is making full use of the SmartEdit technology to alter documents quickly and use preapproved templates to rapidly produce the volume of letters they require.

One of the greatest changes that the FCA have made to the debt recovery is a demand for a more efficient complaints management process. Equinti, a software and IT company from the UK that provides automated procedures that will speed up their background processes has been contracted by Wescot to automate their complaints system. Equinti’s Perito software revolutionises complaint management as it can prioritise important complaints as well as provide user definable fields to further increase efficiency.

The final change for Wescot is the employment of Claire Larson as Operational Risk Manager. It is hoped by the debt recovery company that Larson will be able to shake up the risk management systems at the company to deliver far greater results in the future.

Wescot | Importance of Learning and Development

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For any business in the modern world, having a strong learning and development programme is key to maintaining the success of the company. People change jobs far more frequently than they used to, so getting a new influx of employees on the same level as the rest of the team is important, not to mention enhancing the skills of the staff already employed there. Wescot is the country’s biggest debt recovery company and employs over 650 people, one of the reasons they are able to handle all 5 million of the accounts that they process every year is through the dedicated training that the staff receive at the company.

Wescot is a customer focused debt recovery agency, at the highest priority is maintaining a positive working relationship with all of their clients. One of the ways that Wescot can do this is through their extensive learning and development scheme that regularly twescoteaches the staff that the customer is necessary. So for every person who works at Wescot, they will deliver the same high standard of service to every one of the debt recovery company’s clients.

There are many ways in which Wescot ensure the success of their learning and development. Linking all training to the performance of their employees is an effective way to show that by learning x, they are actively improving their ability to perform y. The reviews that Wescot perform on their employees is an integral part of this process as the learning and development team can monitor how effective the training has been. Another objective of Wescot is to ensure that their training is fun and engaging. For any employee to feel respected and valued by their company, they have to be engaged through learning activities. This then translates to a greater performance from members of the team that go through this training and therefore a greater customer service from Wescot as a whole.

The learning and development team comprises of some of the leaders in their field. For instance, Mike Rustill who leads the team, has joined Wescot from O2 where he was head of training there and he has won several awards for the success of his training programmes. Clients can rest assured that their needs will be met as a result of the high training standards set by Mike Rustill and the team.

Wescot | Customer Driven Learning and Development

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Wescot is a debt recovery company that is based in Hull, Glasgow and Saltcoats. Employing 650 people, Wescot are able to process the 5 million accounts per year that they receive, to the high standard for each of the company’s clients. Customer satisfaction is a philosophy that runs right through Wescot and is most pronounced in the learning and development Wescotprogrammes that the team put together. With the changes that the debt recovery industry is currently undergoing, there is even greater emphasis on a successful training department to better cope with these new changes.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has recently taken over as the regulator of debt recovery companies. This means that the team at Wescot behind learning and development have worked hard to make sure that the training that their staff receive adheres to the guidelines set out by the FCA. Complaint management is an area that has received greater scrutiny amongst other areas. For Wescot, it is important that they are able to maintain close relations with their clients and the employees at the company are trained to explain to clients exactly what they can expect under the new rules from the FCA.

In order for employees at Wescot to feel motivated to convey the company’s philosophy of customer satisfaction, they have to feel engaged with the company. One of the most effective ways of increasing their engagement level is to enhance their training and skills. Wescot’s learning and development department have put together a training programme, that through reviewing all employees they can work on the areas that need improving. What this means for Wescot’s clients is that every employee should be dedicated to satisfying their needs and everyone delivers the same high standard of service.

Ultimately, employees at Wescot have to be aware of what the company’s aims and objectives are. The learning and development team have a comprehensive induction process that relays this information to all new employees but they also extend this throughout the whole company. Under the leadership of Mike Rustill, a highly trained and educated L&D leader that joined Wescot from O2, the L&D department ensure the success of the company through their training and review processes.

 

Wescot | Updating the Debt Recovery Process

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The current economic climate, despite showing some signs of recovery, is still putting a lot of pressure on people financially. This has a knock-on effect to companies involved in the credit process and as such the six years since the credit crunch has forced many creditors to update their operating procedures in light of the changing industry. Couple this with the changes implemented by the new regulation body, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) which has in fact put greater pressures on credit manawescotgement companies then businesses are in a state of flux. Wescot, the country’s largest debt recovery company has however, adapted some of its processes in order to remain at the head of the game.

The average level of disposable income for 2013 was £139 per week. For anyone with outstanding debts then this severely reduces the amount at which they can pay and puts pressure on debt recovery companies as the timescale on a collection is lengthened. To overcome this problem and still deliver a high standard to their clients, companies must be forthcoming with what targets they can reasonably achieve.

When the FCA began regulating the debt recovery market, one of the new rules they introduced meant more efficient complaint handling from debt recovery companies. In order to handle the number of complaints from account owners, Wescot turned to Equinti, a software company that creates programmes to drastically change the efficiency of background processes. Their Perito software has enabled the debt recovery company to organise their complaints better and ensure that the most pressing matters are dealt with first.

In the debt recovery industry, there is still a need for traditional snail mail as a physical letter is far more persuasive than an email that gets ignored in the inbox. During the recession it is important that all businesses operate as efficiently as possible. To this end, Adare is a company that effectively handles large volumes of mail, both by delivering the letters themselves, to speeding up the process of creating the correspondence in the first place. SmartEdit is a programme from Adare that Wescot have utilised to rapidly speed up the time it takes to write letters out, as many are fundamentally the same with some minor changes.

By updating their processes, debt recovery companies can remain on top whilst the industry changes.

Wescot | Learning and Development Culture

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Wescot, the UK’s biggest debt recovery company, is keen to promote the strong learning and training culture that exists within the company. Everybody from the managers, to the learning and development team themselves, right to the freshest employees are encouraged to further improve their abilities and skills. This means that for a customer driven company like Wescot, everybody that works for the company is able to deliver the high standard of customer service that is expected from them.wescot

The learning and development programmes developed by Mike Rustill and his team are engineered to motivate the employees at Wescot to give the best customer service that they can. Client satisfaction is of the utmost importance at Wescot and it is seen to it that everybody that works at the company shares that philosophy. The learning and development team hold regular reviews of every member of staff, so that their strengths and weaknesses can be highlighted. In the case of further training being required, the reviews will go a long way to informing the learning and development team which areas an employee might need extra education. With an extensive training process, clients of Wescot can expect that no matter who they talk to, they will be left encouraged by the friendly and knowledgeable staff who work at the company.

To exhibit just how much learning and development is part of Wescot, the company is keen to embrace the legislation that came into force on the 6th April 2010. Employees were given the right to take time off work for study or training as of that date, and Wescot put a lot of effort into making sure their employees are aware of this. Whether the training is done through Wescot, or the individual has secured further training outside of the business, then the learning and development team are happy to oblige them with the time off. The only proviso of taking this time off is that employees have to prove that by undertaking this training they will actively improve their ability to work for Wescot.

The learning and development culture is paramount for the success of Wescot, managers are fully aware of the progress of employees and acknowledge the fact that through development, the business can continue to succeed.

Wescot | CCR’s Latest Big Name Sponsor

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CCR, or Credits Collections and Risk magazine is the UK’s most read publication regarding the credit industry. Since 2008 and the dawn of the recession, credit and debt have been hotly debated subjects throughout the media. CCR has regularly reported every month on the changes made to the industry as it goes through an extended period of upheaval. The magazine presents information to not just the credit industry but to customers as well, acknowledging any queries that they might have with regards to debt and how to manage it. Each year, CCR also presents a one day conference, entitled CCR-Interactive and many large names in credit make an appearance to network and expand their client base.

With the success of the CCR-Interactive event growing each year, then it has been important for CCR to secure funding from outside sources. They recently announced a new sponsor of the event to be Wescot, the largest debt recovery company in Britain. Based in Glasgow, Hull and Saltcoats the debt management agency employs over 650 people who annually process 5 million different accounts. It is hoped by the organisers of CCR-Interactive that the company’s involvement will provide them with two things, firstly the means to host such an important event, but also the prestige of Wescot will no doubt attract even more people to attend CCR-Interactive.

At the event, attendees can expect amongst other things a brilliant opportunity to socialise and network. The CCR-Interactive attracts many different businesses and some of which would not ordinarily correspond in such a neutral and positive environment. Indwescotividuals, not affiliated with a company will enjoy being able to approach many different businesses in one go, getting a frank view of what each company could offer them.

To end the day, CCR and their sponsor will host a dinner and awards ceremony. The CCR awards are some of the highest accolades that any company in the credit industry can hope to achieve and they are attended by hundreds of people. This is the perfect place for a customer driven company like Wescot to showcase their capabilities as a sponsor and highlight the company’s strengths in general.

Wescot | Learning Objectives that Focus on Customer Service

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There is a changing environment within the debt recovery industry, there is the obvious pressure that given the current economic climate, people have less and less money to spend. For debt recovery companies such as Wescot, this means that it takes relatively more time to recover debt for a client as customers are slower to repay. Factor in to this the fact that the industry has been placed under new guidelines from the Financial Conduct Authority who are demanding stricter rules for complaints management amongst other things, then Wescot and other debt recovery agencies have had to redevelop their operating procedures. This ultimately will result in retraining current staff and altering the training that new staff receive when they join Wescot.

Wescot are one of the largest debt recovery companies in the UK, with 650 employees who work in one of three locations, either Glasgow, Hull or Saltcoats in Western Scotland. Together the company processes 5 million individual debts and in order to change the running of a business as large as Wescot, their learning and development department has had to work hard in order to fall in line with the new regulations. One of the most important things that Wescot’s learning and development team has had to do is notify current and future clients of what the debt recovery company can actually achieve under the new laws. This has required the retraining of staff at Wescot, to uphold the company policy of focussing on the customers and clients of the company.

wescotThe learning and development team at Wescot have many combined years of experience in training employees. Mike Rustill alone has had twenty years in the business, including leading the training department at mobile phone giants, O2 and he brings his expertise and high skill level within learning and development. He has a proven track record at previous roles, not just at Wescot, at being able to perform at a senior operating level. In addition to Mike Rustill, the learning and development team of Wescot also contains Elaine MacDonald, a woman who has seven years in the financial industry, and after joining Wescot in 2003 as a collections agent, Elaine has been promoting to a senior role in the department. These are just a couple of examples of the highly skilled people that operate the learning and development team at Wescot, proving to customers that the training will in fact be effective in updating Wescot’s workforce.

Wescot | Debt Recovery Agency Implements Successful Learning and Development

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Training and continued development of employees is one of the key aspects to running a successful business, training encourages two things, first of which is that it makes employees feel more valued by their employer. Secondly, because employees feel more engaged, they are then more likely to commit greater effort to the business buoyed by the recent development. Wescot is a debt wescotrecovery agency from the UK, that have recognised the need for continued development of their staff, not least because of the extraneous pressures placed on the company to update its processes.

While Wescot have already employed a successful team within the learning and development department, to further train their employees in responsible debt recovery and customer relations, they have had to recently update their operating procedures. This has involved changing the training that Wescot staff receive to fall in line with the new laws set out by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Wescot is one of the largest debt recovery companies in the UK, 5 million individual debts are processed through the company’s 650 employees. Because of the high level of operation that Wescot currently performs at, it is important that the company not only retains a high level of training, but they ensure that the training they give to employees will allow them to work with the FCA’s permission. In a large company such as Wescot, it would be easy for employees to slip under the radar and not receive further training. Such is the high quality of the learning and development department at Wescot that this is not the case, it is important for the continued success of the company that their employees feel motivated and engaged enough to do their jobs to the required standard.

In order to cover all the bases, Wescot continually review their agents and their performances are assessed. The learning and development department will then look at the areas that the employees need to work on and develop the training programmes to suit. In addition to helping engage their employees, Wescot are transparent when it comes to what the management team expect of their colleagues when they turn up to work. The management team also take an active role in developing those who are underperforming, being an integral part in Wescot’s learning and development systems

Wescot Credit Services – Proud Sponsors

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For more than 40 years, Wescot have been providing vital products and services in the industry of receivables management in the UK and now find themselves at the very top of their field. They were set-up as a partnership originally in the 1970s, but became a private limited company in 1983 and Wescot Credit Services Ltd came to exist.

Local government, utilities, retail finance services telecoms and media and banking and finance are all sectors that Wescot provide services to clients in. More than 50 of the country’s best recognised and most successful companies, including Sky, HSBC, RBS and British Gas to name but a few, are currently benefitting from the range of products and services that Wescot Credit Services Ltd offer.

Proud sponsors of this year’s CCR-Interactive and Credit Excellence Awards, Wescot are further raising their profile within the industry and the event’s organisers believe that their support will add real kudos to the day. Wescot are not strangers to sponsoring such prestigious events however, as their annual involvement with the Money Advice Scotland Annual Conference shows.

The fact that Wescot Credit Services Ltd have no debts means they find themselves in a strong trading position. The £32 million turnover they generated in the year ending February 2012 is proof of their financial stability and sees them in an excellent position to best support their customers. This is because they are able to exceed their clients’ ongoing requirements with the sufficient capital they possess. In the last 2 years, Wescot have undertaken a significant investment programme and upgraded much of their information technology infrastructure. This allows them to provide an even better service to their clients and they now have the potential to upscale their current size by three times.

Their people are another aspect of their business that Wescot look to invest in. Their comprehensive learning and development programme means that employees are given a bespoke development plan, which looks to enhance their skills and improve career progression opporwescottunities. One example of Wescot Credit Services Ltd’s commitment to their employees can be seen in their ‘time off work for study’ policy. This allows individuals to request time off from their working week to undertake study activities relating to courses relevant to their jobs. The company’s clients ultimately benefits too, as the people they are liaising with at Wescot are skilled and motivated, which allows them to provide the best possible service.

Wescot Credit Services – Swift Advances

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Wescot Credit Services Ltd are able to provide first class solutions for their clients and often exceed all expectations. A great example of this was the project twescothey carried out for Swift Advances to locate a number of the company’s former customers. Swift had given Wescot the task of tracing more than 2,000 customers who had already paid off their loans and were due to receive a small refund. The conclusion of the exercise saw the successful location of nearly 80% of the individuals concerned, which far exceeded the expectation that Swift Advances had at the start of the project. ‘Locate’ is just one of the many core services that Wescot Credit Services Ltd provide for their clients.

The early 1970s is when Wescot first came on the scene as a debt collections solutions provider. Initially a partnership, the firm was developed into a private limited company in 1983 and the Wescot Credit Services Ltd that is known today was formed. At present, they provide services for a broad range of clients across a number of various sectors. At any one time, they are managing over £4.5 billion worth of performing assets on behalf of their clients and in the year ending February 2013, they dealt with more than 3 million customer accounts. The result of these dealings was the return of over £240 million to the balance sheets of their clients. This is just one of the many reasons why Wescot find themselves as the leading provider of receivables management services in the UK.

To further enhance their reputation and brand awareness, Wescot Credit Services Ltd will be the main sponsors at this year’s CCR-Interactive and Credit Excellence Awards. This is a highly respected event in the industry calendar and its agenda always brings together high calibre speakers and delegates. This is just one reason why Wescot are happy to associate their name with the conference.

Experian are a global information services company who provide clear and accurate data to other businesses and individuals. Wescot Credit Services Ltd signed a deal with Experian two years ago which enabled them to benefit from this vast provision of information. This allows them to gain a better understanding of their customers’ situations and tailor services to suit their needs. It also means that Wescot are in a better position to adhere to the strict regulatory guidelines in the industry and as a result all their customers get treated fairly.