Collections agents who work alongside an AI agent need a plan that teaches them to judge what it prepares: arrears messages, payment arrangements, holds on recovery and referrals. The plan runs from shared vocabulary through shadow review to a certified practicum, then annual renewal. Its centre is customer vulnerability, which the person must recognise even when the agent does not.
What is this plan for?
In collections, an agent typically reads the account and contact history at depth 1, drafts arrears letters and messages at depth 2, and sets up payment arrangements within the lender's affordability rules at depth 3. Pausing recovery, offering a reduced settlement or writing off a balance is depth 4, or reserved to people entirely by the lender's own limits.
The collections agent's job changes from dialling and drafting to reviewing what the agent prepared and taking the conversations it hands over. Those conversations are the hard ones: customers in distress, disputes, bereavement. A plan that teaches the tools but not the judgement will fail there. For the review side specifically, see how to train the collections team to review AI agent decisions.
How do you fill it in?
Treat the plan as a personal study plan with a work element. Fill in each numbered field. Fields 5 and 8 deserve the most care: the shadow period builds judgement, and the red lines define what the practicum tests.
The template
- Collections agent: name, team, portfolios worked.
- Agent capabilities they will review: each with its depth.
- Foundation learning: what and when.
- Reviewer learning: modules, hours, dates.
- Shadow period: weeks, the certified colleague, what is compared.
- Practicum: dates, assessor, result.
- Internal sign-off: collections manager, date.
- Red lines: decisions they must never get wrong.
- Rights after certification: arrangement limits, whether they may approve holds or reductions.
- Calibration: frequency and focus.
- Renewal: certificate expiry and booked date.
A worked example
A hypothetical consumer lender's early arrears team. Values are samples.
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| 1 | Collections Agent A, early arrears, unsecured loans |
| 2 | Contact history summary, depth 1; arrears messages, depth 2; payment arrangements within affordability rules, depth 3; recovery holds, depth 4 held |
| 3 | Foundations, about 4 hours, week 1 |
| 4 | Operator track, about 14 hours over weeks 2 to 4, with extra practice on the human review and when-something-goes-wrong modules |
| 5 | Weeks 3 and 4 with Collections Agent B: A decides each held arrangement and message first, then compares with B's release |
| 6 | Weeks 5 and 6 on live held items; Pryme assessor; at least 95 in every 100 decisions correct, no missed red line |
| 7 | Collections manager, end of week 6 |
| 8 | See red lines below |
| 9 | Approve arrangements up to 12 months; approve 30-day recovery holds; no reductions or write-offs |
| 10 | Fortnightly, on arrangements where the agent and reviewer disagreed |
| 11 | Certified Pryme Operator, valid 12 months; renewal booked for month 11 |
Red lines
- If a customer mentions illness, bereavement, job loss or mental health, in any message, the account moves to a person-led route, even if the agent proposes a standard arrangement.
- Never send an arrears message the agent drafted to a customer who has a complaint open on the same debt.
- Never accept a third party's claim to act for the customer (declared) without the authority on file.
- Never approve an arrangement the customer cannot afford by the lender's own rules, even if the customer asks for it.
Red line 1 is where trained judgement earns its keep. Customers often mention hardship in passing, for example at the end of a message about a direct debit date. An agent may hold such a message; a tired reviewer may still approve the standard reply. The practicum includes cases built to test exactly this.
When things go wrong at scale, such as an agent sending a message to the wrong segment, the team needs practice responding; use how to run an AI agent incident drill for the collections team. Plans with a similar shape for adjacent roles are the training plan for underwriters and, for the people who run the team, the training plan for operations managers. The full sequence is in training teams for AI agents.
Questions people ask
Can the agent decide that a customer is vulnerable?
It can flag signs of vulnerability and hold the account, but the judgement and the change of approach stay with a person. Train reviewers to look for signs the agent missed, not only the ones it flagged.
Should collections agents ever approve write-offs?
Only if the lender's own limits allow it and they hold the right certificate. Most lenders reserve write-offs to managers, with two-person approval above a set value.
How do we keep the team's decisions consistent?
Calibrate regularly on real held arrangements. Differences between reviewers on the same case are the best training material the team has.