Europcar

"Collectia was the first one we met where there was a certain quality of work"

Clarity and predictability. Collectia systematized the reminder work and halved the bad debts for Europcar. After a number of bad experiences with other debt collection companies that promised without delivering, Morten Brødbæk Sørensen had grown tired of empty promises. Neither the no cure no pay principle nor promises of close follow-up on debtors were realized, remembers Morten Brødbæk Sørensen, CFO of Europcar.

"Collectia was the first one we met where there was a certain quality of work. I have full confidence in Collectia to do what they say they will do," he says.

Here, he gets persistent debt collection, with employees calling and reminders to late debtors to remind them of their debt to the company. It is important to get your outstanding debt to the top of the pile of bills when the debtor has money to pay.

"What makes Collectia so good is the employees in the engine room who do real debt collection work every day, calling and reminders to customers. The only way to get your customers to pay is by being persistent. It's very much about calling and presenting your receivables."

Morten Brødbæk Sørensen, Chief Financial Officer at Europcar.

Security and trust

Europcar is a nationwide car rental company with headquarters in Aarhus and more than 40 branches across Denmark. With a fleet of 7,000 cars, vans, trucks and buses, they need to be on the road every day so that customers have something to drive. You have a lot of customers when you rent out cars, and if you don't manage your receivables, you end up with a lot of debtors and a credit risk in your customer database.

Morten Brødbæk Sørensen first set foot in Europcar in 1996 and has learned how successive debt collection companies have delivered disappointing results because debtors were either ignored or treated too harshly. In the past, they either received no attention or the contact stalled. Instead of opening up a dialog and a solution with payment, the bill floated away into nothing. This led to frustration and uncertainty for both debtor staff and management when recovery was done without an understanding of the best course of action.

Halving bad debts

Since Collectia entered the picture three years ago, the debtors all get a streamlined processing with room for cooperation and a realistic approach to the customers who will never pay. This means that the number of doubtful debtors has been halved and order and fresh air have been brought to an otherwise boring part of the debtor work.

"Debt collection was a corner of accounting we didn't want to spend time on. Our previous debt collection supplier did not act on the cases, and online we could see that they did not contact the customers. But with Collectia I no longer follow up on each case or respond to individual customer inquiries," says Morten Brødbæk Sørensen.