All the signs are there that consumers are feeling the economic pain, from rising unemployment rates to this year’s recently reported falling retail sales, says Richard Mukheibir, CEO of Cash Converters Southern Africa . Reflecting these circumstances in empathetic debt collecting approaches means the company now boasts a success rate of two out of three loans clawed back from default. “People are still haunted by that adversarial historic image of rough-and-ready debt collectors,” he says. “Thankfully, that kind of abuse is illegal now. It pushed everyone to rethink their credit and debt procedures and for us, that now means reinforcing a spirit of ‘collecting with kindness’ among our call-centre consultants. The results speak for themselves with collections up 72 per cent year on year.” The improvement has come thanks to better technology to track and follow up debt patterns among borrowers, says Mukheibir, and to the “make friends” approach introduced by Cash Converters Debt...