One of the most important aspects to running a business is to make sure that each member of staff is trained to the highest standard, in order to conduct business with a certain level of autonomy, carrying out the company’s mission to the best of their ability. To this end, Wescot Credit Services provide their staff with many courses and training days to ensure they act as a true representative of the company. Training has also been proven to increase engagement levels between company and staff; therefore a more motivated workforce is a more efficient one.
Wescot Credit Services is one of the largest debt recovery companies in the UK, with offices across Scotland and England; they process over 5 million accounts each year. This high volume of work requires employers to pay close attention and conscientiously process each account with the same high standard as the last. This then is transferred to the clients of Wescot, who constantly put their customers first. A more efficient turnaround on a debt recovery project means lower costs for the client, as well as stronger relations, meaning a high chance of the client returning to Wescot in the future. Learning and development therefore is very important to the company; each employee is entitled to inductions into the company that highlight the company’s strengths and business objectives as well as regular reviews on performance and clear set targets for their continued success.
In addition to being continually reviewed, Wescot Credit Services then offer their employees training in the areas that are perhaps not as effective as in other areas. The Learning and Development team concentrate their efforts on ensuring that their employees are treated with respect when undergoing training, so as to not make them feel disassociated with the company. This again increases the likelihood of a successful debt recovery campaign from Wescot.
Wescot Credit Services also operate a transparency policy on what the management team can be expected to do for the staff. This increases staff morale and shows that there is not such a divide between the management and their delegates. The management team at Wescot take an active role in learning and development of their staff, engaging in review processes and encouraging the Wescot employees to take responsibility for some of their own learning, developing them outside of the office as well.
Wescot are one of the largest debt collecting agencies in the UK, employing over 650 people across three offices. As an ethical debt collecting agency, Wescot Credit Services pride themselves on following stringent government regulations. In some cases, Wescot have even been instrumental in the formation of the regulations themselves, thus determining the debt collection industry standards. The core focus of Wescot is within the banking, telecoms, utility and retail finance sectors. The valuable debt recovery skills which have been built up by the team at 
st a conference addressing some of the more important topical issues which affect the financial services and credit services sectors. As one of the sponsors of MAS, Wescot Credit Services proactively engage with the debt advice sector to identify and implement best practice across the board, especially in these times of huge change for the financial services industry.
As part of a one-off exercise, Swift Advances wished to trace some 2,000 customers who had already paid off their loans in order to issue them with a relatively small refund. Wescot were asked to help by using their Locate experience, skills and technology in order to trace these customers. Within the space of just two weeks, Wescot were able to give positive trace results on almost 80% of all the customers, a far higher figure than Swift originally expected.
Another indicator of the success of Wescot and the solid reputation the company enjoys can be found in the fact that this year it was involved in a sponsorship capacity in two of the most prestigious annual events in the credit industry calendar. Wescot was the main sponsor of the 2013 CCR Interactive event and the Credit Excellence Awards. The purpose of this annual event is to spread the latest best practice principles across the industry. It is also a very useful forum for debate concerning the challenges faced by the credit industry now and in the near future.
Wescot also has a highly effective locate team. Swift Cover, one of the country’s leading insurers, recently selected Wescot to complete a specialist-tracing project on its behalf. Swift was legally required to make small repayments to a large number of former customers. As part of this, approximately 2000 customers had to be traced. Because this was outside of the usual type of activities Swift is engaged in, the insurer did not have the resources or the expertise to carry out the tracing project itself. Swift chose Wescot as its partner. The choice was warranted. The Wescot locate team was able to track down 80 per cent of the individuals Swift was attempting to trace. This exceeded the insurer’s expectations.
The Wescot website is also geared towards providing customers with all possible assistance. It includes a facility enabling customers to make a payment online. Alternatively, customers have the option of making payments by telephone. Other methods of payment include Direct Debit payments, PayPoint outlet payment or else payment by cheque. The website also provides a comprehensive questions and answers page. It sets out very clearly the options open to the customer for discussing and negotiating payment.