The business challenge
What needed to change
Despite being one of Europe’s leading financial services companies, our client was facing a large portfolio of customers with chronically overdue debt, low contactability and rising collection costs.
Repeated attempts to engage customers were failing, resulting in:
stagnant overdue debt
increasing operational costs
growing reputational and regulatory pressure around responsible collections
The human problem
The behaviour behind it
Our behavioural diagnosis revealed that the core barrier was not simply unwillingness or inability to pay – it was emotional overwhelm triggering avoidance.
Existing collection communications were unintentionally reinforcing this behaviour through:
Avoidance: customers ignored communications to postpone confronting the debt
Rationalisation: customers reduced the perceived urgency or severity of the situation
Reduced perceived urgency: Inconsistent follow-through on communicated consequences reduced the need to act immediately
Low perceived responsibility and agency: debt felt unfair or difficult to resolve
Emotional backfire: threatening or overwhelming communications increased resistance rather than action
Our impact
The difference we made
We redesigned debt collection letters and customer-service scripts around the behavioural barriers identified – reducing emotional friction, increasing perceived agency, clarifying next steps and making repayment easier to act on.
The redesigned communications delivered:
18–32% increase in repayments across customer segments, with measurable impact within 3 months.
alongside:
14% lower cost per contact through fewer follow-ups
Significant overdue debt recovered
Reduction in “dead cases”
Improved customer trust
