Europe Collections Supervisor

Description

Global Finance Services (GFS) is a stand-alone internal organization within WTW whose goal is to be the trusted partner for Finance and HR services, delivered through high-quality, cost-effective global processes that consistently meet the needs of the business. GFS cultivates a customer-first service culture and a culture of respect and opportunities for its associates, of which each employee is expected to promote.

As a Collections Supervisor, you will be responsible for managing the day-to-day collections operations. Ensure clients are receiving their bills and are remitting payments in accordance with specified terms. You will interact with clients as needed and work to continuously improve our collections process. As the Supervisor, you will be required to manage your team’s portfolio, prioritize debt issues as well as escalate issues as needed. You will also be responsible for the daily, weekly and month end reporting tasks as well as providing regular updates to the Management team as well as the business.

Performance Objectives

Clients

• Use a combination of communication tools, primarily telephone and e-mail, to contact clients to discuss outstanding debt issues.
• Utilising a combination of defined processes, case history and judgement, make decisions on next course of action, on a client-by-client basis.
• Investigate and resolve occurrences of unallocated cash.
• Display strong, positive, and impressive attitude when interacting with internal and external clients.
• Effectively negotiates payment and solutions when addressing client concerns, issues, and complaints.
• Stakeholder Management – Safeguard the long-standing goodwill relationship with internal and external clients.
  
  

• Analyse/monitor client A/R account balances for past due.
• Making client contacts as per collections strategy (e.g., comfort calls, e-mails, follow-ups).
• Utilize collections tools and workflow to manage contacts.
• Effectively negotiates payment and solutions when addressing client concerns, issues, and complaints.
• Escalate collection issues to field finance managers and business as needed.
• Successfully handle most non-routine issues and escalate to management issues that cannot be resolved.
• Ensure all work is performed in accordance with targets.
• Plan and organize work so that Service Level Agreement objectives are realized.
• Contribute ideas and actions towards the continuous improvement of processes within area of influence.
• Understand and apply WTW’s Billing processes, policies, procedures, and internal control standards.
  
  

• Actively support the team to ensure that debts are collected on a timely basis.
• Interface with other GFS teams to ensure compliance with cross-team responsibilities (Project Maintenance, Billing and Cash Application teams).
• Promote engagement activities to increase team morale.
• Develop and retain team members through effective management practices.
• Make strong contributions to the productivity of the team.
• Work effectively within the team dynamic.
• Recognize and communicate potential issues to management as appropriate; suggest viable solutions for improvement.
• Build an inclusive culture and support the learning opportunities of the team.
• Recruit, interview and hire qualified Collections team resources as needed.
  
  

• 5+ years’ experience working in business-to-business collections with competent communication skills (at least 2 years in a supervisor capacity).
• Experience of working in an environment communicating with English speaking clients.
• Skilled in customer service interactions/ability to communicate with professional image/customer-focused mindset through various channels (e.g., phone, e-mail, etc.).
• Ability to handle difficult conversations. Assertive and able to steer discussions towards mutually favourable resolution.
• Understanding of accounting processes.
• Being adaptable to learn new processes, concepts, and skills.
• Ability to interpret and analyze financial data and use this analysis to identify the root cause and/or devise the appropriate action plan.
• Ability to pay attention to detail.
• Ability to resolve exceptions and disputes.
• Ability to work well under pressure and meet deadlines.
• Demonstrate high degree of interpersonal, coaching facilitation and negotiating skills.
• Ability to multi-task.
• Ability to work in a team as well as independently.
• Ability to be flexible with position duties and scope of work.
• Strong knowledge of MS Excel.
• Proficiency in MS Word, Access, and PowerPoint.
• Work set up and schedule flexibility.