Engage the disputing parties at an early stage, says
Kevin Parker of Shoosmiths.

 

Satisfactory quality dispute
management has always been seen as a resource-hungry and
problematic element of any motor finance operation.

Lenders often have large and
sometimes inexperienced teams dealing with ever-increasing levels
of such disputes. To make matters worse, some of these disputes are
spurious or a ‘try on’ in an attempt to avoid payment of the
contractual monthly instalments during a period of financial
difficulty.

Many lenders now see an increasing
volume of complaints being referred to the Financial Ombudsman
Service (FOS). This has a direct cost implication to the lender for
FOS to consider each complaint, but rarely produces an outcome that
is acceptable to the dealer, the customer and the lender.

At Shoosmiths, for some years, we
have supplied the motor finance industry with a portfolio
management service that effectively manages the whole of a lenders
arrears portfolio. Portfolio management is now an acknowledged
option for lenders looking to manage costs while maintaining
control of their arrears book.

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A significant interest has been
shown in our latest product – satisfactory quality dispute
resolution. This is a two-stage, fixed-price service that manages
any such dispute from start to finish.

Further, the product offers
suitably experienced negotiators and lawyers to action the
complaint quickly and offers a level of independence that cannot be
achieved by the lender managing its own complaints.

Customers often fall out with
salespeople at dealerships due to the personalities involved, or
where the customer thinks that the dealer is not listening to them.
Conversely, the dealer believes the customer’s expectations are
unrealistic.

At Shoosmiths we are able to use
our legal knowledge and the litigation process as a lever to
encourage early resolution of the complaint to all parties’
satisfaction. We do this by engaging with both the customer and the
dealership at an early stage before parties become entrenched and
costs prohibitive. We often use mediation at stage two of the
process to get the parties around a table and focusing on
resolution.

By listening to client needs, we
have developed, and now implemented, this specific product and
early indications are encouraging, demonstrating we can obtain
quick settlements for happy dealers and customers.

Kevin Parker is head of
collections and portfolio management at Shoosmiths