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Monday, November 30, 2009

Why Forwarding?

I just received this note from a TFA member about the state of the forwarding business.

Having helped create this industry within our industry, its a subject I am passionate about, as you can tell by some of my other blogs. He raises some good points and I've copied his letter below for your reference.

I agree with most of what he says, but I disagree with his statement that the reason lenders went to Forwarders was gouging? Maybe on a few occasions, as is the case with any industry, but lenders are paying more now for a managed process, so it is doubtful to me that it was a cost issue, or a gouging issue.

I witnessed first hand the transformation of Chrysler Credit from a hundred or so branch company to a 3-4 call center company. That is one reason lenders went to forwarders as it became difficult for these companies to manage so many relationships after they went to a national call center model. It killed the days of getting to know your local repo man. When I was a collector in the Sacramento branch, and a collection manager in Long Beach and Cerritos for Chrysler Credit, I knew all the agents in town, and I knew who to use, and who not to use. Being the president of some association didn't automatically qualify a repo company as being good in my book back then, or even now. I respect those who serve the industry, but for me the bottom line is always the bottom line, and that's performance.

Good luck knowing your local Wyoming repo man if your at a call center in Dallas. Relationships are built on trust, and that's tough when you've never even met the person who owns the repo company. Relationships as difficult as the one between a lender and a repo company are more complex than most business relationships, and in many ways, they're built on trust and hard work. When we brought on a new lender to handle their forwarding back in the 90s, each of those relationships had evolved over years of trust being built.

IMO, the second reason forwarding became common was inexperience. How many clients had departments or people managing the repo process on a national basis? At Chrysler, the agents you approved was a decision made at the branch level back then. We were successful at ARS with our first client in 1993-94, VW credit, for this exact reason. We had started Skipbusters in 1988 and for the prior six years, we'd been managing a group of 300 or so agents, and believe me, it wasn't easy getting the number whittled down from 2000 to 300 of the best agents in the country. We were repossessors and we understood that business, so it was easier to manage, but it took six years to get it right. We'd also been skip tracing and managing the VW skip repo's for several years and we had built trust with them.

Back then we charged a reasonable fee of $75 per assignment, and the next reason lenders outsourced this process is the cost was less, and by cost in the VW example, it was driven by actual cost and also productivity gains we showed over the results they were getting before they were using ARS, so their bottom line improved. If more lenders looked at "cost" as a bottom line number and not a line item repo expense, we wouldnt be in this mess. It still blows my mind the same effort is expected and the same price per repo is paid for a car worth $1500 as one worth $50K. That certainly doesnt make sense for a finance company, but that's the way it is, and that's another topic for another blog. I could also ask why a client pays the repo man less, or in most cases nothing, when they make contact and the customer pays from their contact. If they took the car the lender suffers a several thousand dollar loss, but if their efforts get the customer to pay, they dont lose that money, so why wouldnt they reward an agent for dong this, versus penalizing them as they do now?

The next reason I believe forwarding became so popular, at least for us at ARS, was the explosion of the sub prime market. Companies like LSE were jumping into servicing and they didnt really understand the repo assignment model and they were getting eaten alive with wrongful repossessions, inefficient vendors, volume, etc. We handled a then industry record 50K repossessions in 98 and most were sub prime loans serviced by companies like LSE, Harvest group, and a bunch of other names I don't remember as they're all long gone. We knew the decision makers they hired from prior business relationships we'd established and we gave them an immediate solution, at a fair price. We also paid the repo guy back then $275. It blows me away when I read things like this that say the fee is still $275, or less. We didnt even have tow trucks or computers back then, and now you need all that and more, wages and insurance is much higher, but the price per repo is still being driven down? Why dont lenders see repossessors as valuable commodities to improve their bottom line? FWIW, we pay all our agents $375 a repo, and a $75 to $150 close fee for positive resolution, which we believe is still below what it should be, but at least we have a few clients who see the results and agree this is a fair price.

The next reason is it became attractive for a lender to push the liability to the forwarder as it gave them an extra layer of insulation if something went wrong. This is still the case, and will always be, but the liability exposure from a PR and actual dollar standpoint pales in comparison to the losses some of these lenders are taking by using the current forwarding model. When he says now clients are driving down the price for forwarding, that's to be expected, it's the same thing they did to us as repossessors when I ran my repo companies in the 90s. Clients see expenses as something that should be reduced, and although you can reduce your line item repo expense by making the repo guy charge less, is it really improving your bottom line? No it is not. I guarantee it.

Finally, the selection and management of agents is a process that's difficult to manage when doing it manually, and when you add in metrics, it's still something very few, if any lenders or forwarding agents have a good handle on. Most lenders or forwarders want the cheapest guy and the rest of the details are less important. The one's who measure performance are only scratching the surface of what really needs to be measured.

You cant manage what you cant measure is never more true than when applied to a difficult business like skip tracing and repossession. Just because an agent recovers 60% of the cars does that mean he's great? He may get a better percentage than others, but does that have more to do with the agent or the paper, the area he is in or the quality of the collection work and the assignment preceding the repossessors work in the field? I want to know what an agent does by zip code, how they do overall in all aspects of the job, especially when they have multiple offices.

I can guarantee you J&B Recovery in LA pulls more cars and resolves more accounts out of South Central and Compton than most of the other three dozen guys who advertise in those areas, and that's because Jake gets out of his truck and knocks on doors. The thing is, recovery percentages in South Central have to be low, so if his numbers only show 50% is that bad? Everything is relative, and measurement of as much of the repo process as can be measured is the name of the game when it comes to managing the process, from a lender standpoint, down to a repo agency standpoint, and especially down to an repossessor standpoint so they can become accountable to themselves as well as to their boss.

This is the exact reason I have spent three years re-entering this crazy industry. I believe a change is in order, and if I'm right, lenders will gladly pay more money for results that improve their bottom line, which will start going direct to agents again, as it can be a process they not only will be better able to manage with our software, but after seeing how we manage the process, there is no way they would ever again consider outsourcing such an important decision to a company ran by guys who don't have their best interests in mind, i.e. most forwarders today.

John

Here's his note:

Something new and very interesting is happening.

Chrysler told PAR they would no longer pay more than $350 per repossession. That's $350 total to PAR. In response to this PAR is contacting every agent and cutting their fee to $275 per repossession (Los Angeles agents were given $25 more). PAR wanted to make the cut even greater and tell agents they would only get $250, but they figured too many agents would quit so they settled for $275. At $75 per assignment PAR can't make enough money to make it worthwhile to forward. They also get fewer services from agents, poorer quality of agents and more incidents as they use less experienced and cheaper agents.

How long is Chrysler or anyone else going to use the forwarders when their recovery rates are dropping every year? Some companies are seeing recovery rates as low as 20% from forwarded accounts.

If Chrysler paid me $350 to pick up a car, I'd still do it for them and do them a good job, but how good a job can I do for $275? As you know, I work for most of the forwarding companies and have a good relationship with them, but I'm firing more companies every month. I tell them they want a top of the line agency, but they want to pay for a grease monkey with a sling truck. It just isn't going to work.

PAR made another change a short time ago. They doubled the number of assignments their employees must work each month. They have a quota and if they don't meet it they are gone. Consequently, the employees don't have time to verify addresses, locate new addresses or even talk to the agent in the field about an account.I see this happening more and more often with the forwarding companies.

I've long said the pendulum swung away from agents because they were gouging the lenders. It was our own fault the forwarding companies ever got started. Now, the pendulum is going to swing back toward direct agents and it will be the fault of the forwarders.

I believe in 2010 you are going to see a few of the lenders leaving the forwarding companies and going back to direct agents to get their recovery percentages back up.

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