Collection and Recovery Solutions Conference Really Getting it Right

There is a relatively new conference helping to guide the thinking of many top collection executives at the nation’s largest credit granting organizations. In only its third year, the Collection and Recovery Solutions (CRS) conference, organized by Resource Management Services (RMS), has already attracted the attention of some of the world’s largest credit granting organizations.

The third annual conference, which was held in September at the Ritz-Carlton - Lake Las Vegas, featured speakers from the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, Ford Motor Credit Company, Bank of America, Kohl's Department Stores and Temple University. And with roundtable presenters from organizations such as Chase Card Services, American Express, Compass Bank and American Honda Finance, the conference is attracting a lot of attention from high-level collection executives.

The conference is by invitation only and the attendee list reads like a who’s-who of the credit granting elite. According to Ford Motor Credit’s Performance and Agency Manager Lynne Niepage, “This is the best conference (for creditors) in terms of applicable information. The topics are very relevant.”

Conference attendees are treated to a first class experience at the CRS conference. RMS president Judy Hammond spares no expense in making participants feel pampered. And the environment created makes networking feel rather classy. But the conference’s true benefit is the focus on practical and outside-the-box solutions for collection and recovery challenges in credit granting organizations.

Speakers’ topics at the event included "FTC Actions and Updates", "Managing Variable Work-Flows in Collections" and "Best Practice in Arbitration: Efficiently and Amicably Resolving Disputes." Conference participants were given the opportunity to benchmark their own collection and recovery practices against those of their peers. The event also spoke to managing relationships with outside collection agencies. Representatives from Ford Motor Credit gave a lecture entitled "Straight Talk on Agency Management" and Dennis Hammond, from The Debt Marketplace, discussed “Selling Debt.”

There is certainly a place for collection agencies at CRS. While agencies at the conference are generally treated as vendors, Saul Freedman, from collection agency MRS Associates, notes, “The conference is very well set up for the benefit of vendors and participants.” Additionally, there is a roundtable discussion for collection agency attendees designed to help agencies with various business challenges.

But the focus primarily remains on the creditor. Conference attendee Mike Ginsberg, whose firm Kaulkin Ginsberg Company hosted the roundtable discussion for collection agencies at CRS, noted, “RMS really knows what the creditors want and this conference does a great job of focusing on their needs.” Ginsberg, who has attended various industry events over the years, said “It has been fascinating to watch the evolution of the conference and the acceptance of it in the creditor community.”

A unique feature of CRS is the laptop giveaway at the end of the conference. Like most high-end conferences, Collection and Recovery Solutions provides attendees a cyber cafe to check email and get some work done on laptops. At the end of the event, the laptops are raffled off to attendees. This year, 33 laptops were given away to conference attendees at the end of the event.

Plans are already underway for CRS 2005. The conference will be held again in Las Vegas at Wynn Las Vegas, one of the city’s newest and grandest resorts scheduled to open early next year.