The best phone system for debt collection agencies

Collections is a contact-volume business: Skipcall quadruples the number of conversations without adding headcount.

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Hundreds of companies use to make every call pay off

The situation

What holds you back today

01

Right-party contact rates are very low

02

Every exchange has to be evidenced

03

Payment promises tracked by hand

The answer

What Skipcall changes

Parallel calls across every known number

The parallel dialer →

Time-stamped recording of every conversation

Recording and transcription →

A dated task on every payment promise

Task management →

Specific to your industry

What the UK collections rulebook asks of your calls

Collections is one of the few sales-adjacent jobs where the way you call is written down. Knowing the rules does not slow the floor down: it avoids complaints, and a complaint costs far more than a written-off account.

A collections call is not a marketing call

The Telephone Preference Service and its corporate equivalent bite on unsolicited direct marketing calls under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. Calling someone about a debt that arises from an agreement they signed is not direct marketing, so a TPS registration does not stop the call. The moment you offer them something else on that call, the classification changes and the registration applies.

FCA authorisation and the CONC rules

Collecting consumer credit debts, on your own account or on behalf of a client, is a regulated activity: the firm needs FCA authorisation and works under the Consumer Credit sourcebook, CONC, whose chapter 7 covers arrears, default and recovery. Since the Consumer Duty came into force on 31 July 2023 the same rules also ask you to support the customer through the conversation, and to recognise a customer in vulnerable circumstances rather than push past them.

Charges are not a pressure lever

CONC 7.7 says a firm must not impose charges on a customer in arrears that are higher than necessary to cover its reasonable costs, and only where the agreement provides for them. Announcing an invented file fee or letter fee on the phone is the fastest route to a complaint, then to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and it destroys the credibility of everything else said in the call.

Repeated calls have a criminal limit

Section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 makes it an offence to harass a debtor, including by making demands with a frequency or in a manner calculated to subject the person to alarm, distress or humiliation, and by falsely implying that legal proceedings or official action will follow. CONC 7.9 adds that you must not contact a customer at unreasonable times and must take account of reasonable requests about when and where to call. Set a written contact cadence, hold it, log it.

Recording, and what the debtor is told

Recording a collections call is fine, provided you say so at the start of the conversation and limit the purpose, the retention period and who can listen. The debtor is a data subject under the UK GDPR: they need to know who is processing their data and why, and to be able to exercise their rights. What they tell you about their health, their household or their income deserves particular care and stays inside the file.

A team that logs the time, the substance and the outcome of every attempt answers a complaint in three minutes. Skipcall records, transcribes and summarises every call. Your organisation decides what is kept and for how long.

The script

The collections call, word for word

You are calling someone about an unpaid account that arises from an agreement they signed. This is not a sales call: it offers nothing except settlement of the debt, and it is aiming at a payment or a dated commitment. The tone stays level from the first word to the last, and every step is logged.

The opening, before anything about the account

“Good morning, [first name last name] calling from [firm]. Could I speak to [debtor's name] please, it is a personal matter.” Then, once the identity is confirmed: “Thank you. I should let you know this call is recorded. I am calling about invoice [reference] from [creditor], for [amount], due since [date]. Are you aware of that account?”

Nothing about the account is said until the identity is confirmed, and the recording notice comes before the subject. The closing question sorts an oversight from a dispute from genuine difficulty in one sentence, and those three do not lead to the same conversation.

If they dispute the invoice

“Understood. Which part exactly: the amount, the service, or the date? I will put the account on hold while I check with [creditor], and I will call you back on [date] with the answer.”

A reasoned dispute is dealt with in the file, not on the phone. Pushing on over a dispute is what turns a recoverable account into a complaint, and a complaint costs more than the debt.

If they say they cannot pay

“All right. What we can do is an arrangement. What can you pay this month, and on what date?”

Ask for an amount and a date, never an agreement in principle. A modest arrangement that holds is worth more than a reassuring promise the person already knows they cannot keep. Where the answer points to real hardship, say what free debt advice is available and note it on the file.

If they ask what you are charging them

“On this account there is nothing beyond the balance. You owe [amount] on the invoice, and nothing further from us.”

Between businesses, statutory interest and the fixed compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 do apply and are stated as such. Towards a consumer, announcing a charge that the agreement does not provide for breaks CONC 7.7 and destroys the credibility of the whole conversation.

If they get angry, or ask you to stop calling

“I understand. I will not call you again this week. The balance is still owed and my job is to find you a way through before the account goes back to [creditor]. I will put it in writing, and you can call me whenever you want on [number].”

Calling again the same day after a clear answer is exactly what section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 is aimed at. Handing control back while leaving a channel open protects the firm and keeps the account alive.

Closing with a commitment

“So to confirm: [amount] on [date], by transfer to the details I am sending you in writing today. I will call you the day after that if the payment has not reached us.”

The commitment is repeated out loud, confirmed in writing and becomes a dated task. Announcing the follow-up call in advance is what makes it legitimate when the day comes.

At Skipcall, every call is recorded, transcribed and summarised, so the script gets corrected against what your reps actually say rather than what we imagine they say.

Avoid this

Three mistakes this industry makes on the phone

The mistake

Telling whoever picks up what the call is about, or leaving it on a voicemail.

Do this instead

A partner, a colleague or an employer has no business knowing about the debt, and disclosing it to a third party is a data protection breach as well as a CONC problem. Say nothing about the account until the identity is confirmed, and leave a message that carries only your name, the firm's name and a callback number.

The mistake

Announcing letter fees or an imminent enforcement visit to force a payment.

Do this instead

Falsely implying that legal proceedings or enforcement will follow is precisely what section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 makes an offence, and without a county court judgment no enforcement is possible. Name the real next step instead: the account returned to the creditor, and court action if the creditor chooses it.

The mistake

Using the call to offer a consolidation loan, an insurance policy or another service.

Do this instead

The call becomes direct marketing, which brings the TPS registration and the marketing rules back into play and loses the basis that made the call fine in the first place. A collections call is about settlement of the debt and about nothing else.

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions, Debt collection

No. The Telephone Preference Service, and the Corporate TPS for business numbers, apply to unsolicited direct marketing calls under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. A call whose purpose is the settlement of a debt arising from an existing agreement is not a marketing call, so the registration does not prevent it. That protection disappears if the call drifts into selling something else, a consolidation loan or an insurance product for instance, at which point you are marketing and the registration applies.
No UK rule sets a number of calls or a permitted time band. The limits are CONC 7.9, which says you must not contact a customer at unreasonable times, must take account of reasonable requests about when and where to call, and must not contact so often that it becomes excessive, and section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970, which makes harassment of a debtor a criminal offence. In practice a written cadence, a few attempts a week at varied times, calls stopped as soon as an arrangement is agreed and a log of every attempt is a defensible position. What exposes a firm is not the count, it is pressing on after a clear answer.
On a consumer credit account, only where the agreement provides for a charge and only up to what CONC 7.7 allows, which is no more than necessary to cover the firm's reasonable costs. Between businesses the position is different: the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives the creditor statutory interest at 8% above the Bank of England base rate, fixed compensation of £40, £70 or £100 depending on the size of the debt, and reasonable recovery costs above that figure where they can be shown. Announcing a charge that is not due is the quickest way to turn a collectable account into a dispute.
Yes. The notice is given at the start of the call, with the purpose of the recording and how the person can exercise their rights. Internally, the staff being recorded have to be told as well, and the recording is kept for a defined, limited period with access restricted to the people who need it. A recording made without notice is worth nothing when you need it, which is precisely when a complaint lands.
Three functions matter more than the rest: reaching people at volume, keeping a trace of what was said, and raising a dated task on every payment promise. Skipcall dials four lines in parallel, drops voicemails through AI detection, and records, transcribes and summarises every call. It integrates natively with HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce and Attio, and by API with other tools including a collections case management system. It does not route inbound calls: it takes them on the line of the person they are for, with no IVR menu and no queue.

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