Collections contact strategy matrix

Which customer in arrears hears what, through which channel, how often, and from whom? A collections contact strategy matrix answers that for every arrears stage and customer situation. With AI agents in collections, it also fixes which contacts an agent may send alone, which it drafts for a person, and which it never handles.

What does a contact strategy matrix control?

Collections contact has two failure modes. Too little, and a customer who could have been helped early falls further behind. Too much, or in the wrong tone, and contact becomes pressure, which regulators in most markets treat as a conduct failure. The matrix sets the middle path in writing, so every contact can be checked against it.

An agent makes the matrix more important, not less. An agent can send a thousand messages an hour. If the rules are vague, the agent will follow them consistently in the wrong direction. And contact is harder to undo than it looks: a message read cannot be withdrawn, which is a theme of irreversibility in collections.

When should it be used?

Use it to configure every collections agent before go-live, to brief the people who handle held contacts, and as the test basis for certification. Update it whenever products, arrears processes or policies on customers in financial difficulty change.

The matrix sits alongside two others. The repayment plan limits matrix sets what may be agreed once a customer engages. The bank operations depth matrix for AI agents records the depth each collections capability has actually earned.

How do you fill in each field?

• Stage. Days past due bands, or your own stages.
• Customer situation. At minimum: standard, reported financial difficulty, signs of vulnerability, account in dispute. Situation overrides stage.
• Channels. Which are allowed, in order of preference.
• Frequency cap. Maximum contacts per period, counting every channel together.
• Content. The approved template or purpose. Never "agent writes freely".
• Offers. What may be mentioned: payment plan, breathing space, signposting to free debt advice.
• Sender and depth. Agent at depth 3, agent drafting at depth 2, or person only.
• Stop rules. What ends contact: a dispute, a complaint, a request to stop, a report of vulnerability.

The collections contact strategy matrix

Repeat the four situation rows for each stage.

A filled sample: a credit card book

The offers column, omitted here for space, would list payment plans within the limits matrix for standard customers and breathing space for those in difficulty.

Three choices in the sample are deliberate. Customers in financial difficulty get drafts, not automated messages, because tone matters more than speed. Every formal letter at 61 days and beyond is approved by a person, because these letters have legal weight. And a dispute stops all collections contact at once.

How does the agent apply the matrix?

The agent reads the customer's stage and situation from the collections system, checks the frequency cap against every contact already made in all channels, and acts only where the matrix allows it. The connection points are covered in how to connect an AI agent to your collections system. When a customer engages and asks for a plan, the agent moves to the process in how to let an AI agent set up payment plans in your collections system.

If the agent cannot determine the situation, for example because a vulnerability note is unclear, it treats the customer as vulnerable and holds the contact. The guide to AI agents in banking explains why that default matters.