Collections reviewers need to be ready for one thing above all: the customer who cannot pay, not the one who will not. This checklist brings a new reviewer in through restricted access, signed red lines on hardship and contact, shadowing on held payment plans, training and exam, a two-week practicum with real arrears cases, and sign-off with clear limits.
What will a new collections reviewer face?
A collections agent sends reminders, explains balances, offers payment plans within the business's bounds and records promises to pay. Reminders and balance explanations are depth 2 or 3. Agreeing a plan within bounds is depth 3. Anything beyond: a plan outside policy, a write-off, a referral to a debt agency, a default notice or a legal step, is held for a person, and some steps belong at depth 4 because they are hard to undo for the customer.
The reviewer's hardest cases involve people in difficulty. A customer mentions losing a job, a bereavement, a health condition, or says something that suggests they are at risk. The agent should hold or route these, but the reviewer decides what happens next, and must recognise signs the agent did not flag. The other danger is pressure: a reviewer under target pressure approving an aggressive plan the customer cannot keep.
How do you run it?
The collections manager owns the checklist. Work through it stage by stage and do not grant approval rights until stage 5 is signed. Keep it in the reviewer's file, because complaints in collections often arrive months later and you may need to show what the reviewer knew. The training approach for stages 2 to 4 is in how to train the collections team to review AI agent decisions.
The order of stages mirrors the guide to training teams for AI agents: learn the work, prove competence on it, then receive the rights.
The checklist
Stage 1: before day one - [ ] Read-only access to the workspace and the collections queue - [ ] Agent's capabilities and depths shared: reminders (2), balance explanations (2), plans within bounds (3), plans outside bounds and write-offs (held), default and legal steps (4, held) - [ ] Red lines signed: never approve a plan the customer's stated income cannot support; always route signs of vulnerability to the specialist team; never approve contact outside permitted times or channels
Stage 2: shadowing (week 1) - [ ] Two days with a certified reviewer on held plans - [ ] Seen one plan rejected for affordability - [ ] Seen one case routed for vulnerability that the agent had not flagged
Stage 3: training (weeks 1 to 5) - [ ] Shared foundation complete, test passed - [ ] Reviewer modules complete - [ ] Written exam passed
Stage 4: practicum (weeks 6 and 7) - [ ] Two weeks of real held decisions, each confirmed by a buddy - [ ] Covers an affordability rejection, a vulnerability referral, a disputed balance and a request for a write-off - [ ] Incident drill completed
Stage 5: sign-off - [ ] Assessor sign-off; no missed red line - [ ] Approval rights recorded: plan length and amount limits; write-offs excluded at first - [ ] Renewal date entered in the register
Worked example
An illustrative utility's collections team brings in Sample Reviewer L. The agent offers plans of up to six months within bounds; longer plans, any write-off and any default step are held.
On day two of shadowing, she sees her buddy decline a 12-month plan the customer had proposed because their stated income left nothing for rent, and offer a referral to free debt advice instead. She also sees a case where the customer wrote "I don't know how I'll cope", which the agent had treated as a routine plan request; the buddy routed it to the specialist team.
During her practicum she decides 80 held cases and refers three for vulnerability. One request to "just write it off, I've been a customer for 20 years" is held for a senior colleague as outside her future rights. She is signed off at the end of week 7 with rights for plans up to 12 months and renewal set 12 months on.
Is collections onboarding different from support onboarding?
Yes. Support reviewers mostly decide refunds and account changes; collections reviewers decide what a customer in debt must pay and when. The vulnerability stakes are higher and the pressure from targets is real. The reviewer onboarding checklist for the support team shows the contrast, and compliance reviewers who check collections outcomes follow the reviewer onboarding checklist for the compliance team.
Questions people ask
Should collections reviewers have targets during the practicum?
No. Measure correctness and red lines only. Targets during assessment teach people that speed matters more than judgement.
What counts as a missed red line in collections?
Approving a plan that the customer's stated position cannot support, missing a clear sign of vulnerability, or approving contact the business does not permit. Any one of these fails the practicum.
Who decides write-offs?
A senior reviewer with explicit rights. New reviewers should not hold write-off rights until they have a track record after sign-off.