Latest / Receivables Podcast | Discussions About Debt Collection / Building Trust Through Reviews | Joseph Torriere | Ep. 291

Transcript

Building Trust Through Reviews | Joseph Torriere | Ep. 291 · Receivables Podcast | Discussions About Debt Collection

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Hello everybody, Adam Parks here with another episode of Receivables Podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: Today is a special episode for me because I have been working with Joseph Tereri here for many years, and it's the first time I've had an opportunity to really have a conversation with him on a podcast.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm very excited because Spire Recovery Solutions, his organization, was one of the first movers out there to start developing digital trust and to seeing the importance of it, not just sending text messages and emails, but actually building digital trust.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, Joseph, thank you so much for coming on, sharing your insights with me today.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: I I really do appreciate you.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And for anyone who has not been as lucky as me to get to become your friends through the years, could you tell everyone a little about yourself and how you got to the seat that you're in today?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um name's Joseph Terreri, president slash COO of Spire Recovery Solutions, founding member of uh the organization.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Founded the company with my twin brother, Jacob, in uh 2014.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as far as experience goes, before we started the company, we're in the military.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it was honestly like our first real endeavor that we started in our adult lives and started ground up and been in the position ever since.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like you guys are doing some really great things.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: And Spire is a unique organization.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell everyone a little bit about Spire Recovery?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we're a licensed, uh, a nationally licensed third-party collection agency.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: We service primarily for debt buyers with uh a couple exceptions.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um we are dual location, so our headquarters is in Lapport, New York, and our main collections hub is in Richardson, Texas.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And currently we work with about 15 clients and uh we sit around 150 FTE, all domestic.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, it's a it's a lot of collectors to be managing.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, one of the things that we've talked about through the years has been digital trusts.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And as the guy who's been managing your website for probably I think since about 2014 when you guys first got started, I think you've done a really incredible job of developing that digital trust and giving that focus on the Google reviews.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: I even had a call this morning where I had a very large agency that I respect a lot tell me, look, we're debt collectors, we're never gonna see five-star reviews.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I pushed back on that and said, Well, you're you're never gonna see them naturally, but there is always that opportunity.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: From your perspective as an agency owner, what was that catalyst that got you to say, we need to focus some time and energy on getting five-star Google reviews?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I think I've mentioned to you that uh we watched a podcast that you had a company on and the topic was Google Reviews.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the kickstart for us to take initiative and start making an active effort to cultivate those Google reviews.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And five stars is a feat.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're sitting at 4.7, but it is absolutely possible.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, look, 4.7 for a collection agency.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, a collection agency is not going to generate those kinds of reviews without forethought and effort.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: As you came to that realization that you needed to start building that digital trust online, what were some of the actions that you took with your team in order to start you on the right path towards those uh those five-star reviews?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like anything else, I think that you need to cultivate an environment that's conducive to your objectives.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So uh you can do that through incentives or procedures, but we did that through incentivization and creating a mechanism which the staff can capture the reviews from the consumer.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So without giving away too many secrets, you have to be able to give the consumer an opportunity to provide that review.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever that may mean for your organization, but it is definitely doable.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely doable.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we think about those, those mechanisms and how we're going to drive opportunities for people to engage with those consumers, is it strictly a digital channel?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Is there some some talk through going there?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you also had mentioned compet kind of compensation or incentivizing folks to to move them towards that direction.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So let me start by s by asking, you know, is there what kinds of mechanisms have you found to be successful and what kinds of incentivization have been successful for you?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like what are some of the things that are are working?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely a f an omni-channel function.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, you could be texting with the consumer, phone conversation.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you could be wrapping up a call, you could be starting off a call, uh, your administration could be handling it.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, it's definitely part of all of the channels of communication.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: So whatever whatever channel is going out there across whether it be written, digital, whatever, you're always providing some sort of a link back or some sort of an engagement tool for that ask.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: Does it always happen in that same communication, or do you find that breaking that up has an impact?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: I know e-commerce is very different from being a debt collector, but I'm trying to kind of think about some of those e-commerce strategies that have been successful and see if maybe those have have worked here as well.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would say it's gonna happen on in one conversation and it's not gonna be broken up.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we're not we're not actively doing any follow-through for the reviews, but you know, maybe you're wrapping up an arrangement or you're modifying an arrangement or the consumer's chatting online on the website, and just I guess part of those processes.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you've kind of rethought a lot of the communication processes and found those opportunities to implement this, let's call it strategic need across all of those different types of communications.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we think about kind of incentivizing people, right?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like we get the behavior that we measure or that we get the behavior that we compensate for.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I know through my conversations in in the last podcast where where I talked with uh with American Recovery and about some of the strategies that they were using, you know, they mentioned that there's a sweet spot for incentives when it comes to Google reviews, and that going too far does not add value, and not going far enough was not adding the value, but they found a sweet spot.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And without asking you to give away, you know, any of the trade secrets that you've developed through trial and error, any insights that you can provide about where that sweet spot lies, or if that sweet spot is different based on different types of products, credit products.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can yeah, I would assume just like any organization, objectively, everything's got a cost associated with it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And what do these ratings mean to you?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then what you're going to allocate and across how many agents or whatever your structure is that needs to make sense for you.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's something that you need to uh, you know, budget a ton of capital for, but it should be very easy for the agent to deliver whatever mechanism for the to the consumer to get them to provide that review and just make it part of the workflow.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it's that deployment, but in order to incentivize those collectors, you do have to find that balance for you.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like what is the right amount that I'm willing to spend for that before it it burns too much or does not do enough.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Did you go through a lot of trial and error in that process, or did you kind of hit the nail on the head and say, like, hey, we found kind of this immediate balance based on maybe some other oriences?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: We might be lucky in that regard.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: We did we hit the nail on the head.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'll take paint.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that we haven't really had to change up too much since implementation, and uh it's it's working.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: So you found that right balance for you, and it definitely is working because we're seeing that impact.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, one of the things I want to point out for the audience is that building that digital trust is kind of twofold.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's the value in terms of engaging with the consumers themselves, but there's also a piece here that helps to drive deliverability rates.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Gmail being one of those email platforms that a lot of consumers are using for the free email, although nothing's free, right?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're reading the email and selling the ads.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: But the Google reviews are a gate that they're using on your domain to basically look at whether or not they should be delivering all of the messages through and through.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: As you've gone through the process of developing these five-star leads and building this over a number of years, let's not pretend it happened overnight.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: You guys have been consistently doing this for a period of time.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: But what does that start to look like for you?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess on the deliverability, it's deliverability side, it's tough to say because I don't have comparable metrics from other organizations to say, hey, this is better than industry standard.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, we we aren't having any issues on that end.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: But again, like you said, it's been you know five or six years of this.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: So um, we've been able to internally build up that reputation with I guess Google in general.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the reviews I I know are a big factor in that because when we originally set up branding arc, our SEO division was being run by a guy that we had hired that had worked for Google to kind of look at some of these things and help us better understand, you know, what that ultimately means.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I as I read through marketing trade journals and other things, you can see that the Google reviews do have a direct impact on capabilities in other areas, right?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Deliverability of other messages.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you also see some strong correlation to Google voice usage as well.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know how many consumers are ultimately using Google Voice, but I can assume if they're in debt, you know, finding these opportunities for free phone numbers is probably pretty high on the priority list.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: But starting to think through some of that trust, because I when I think about the purpose of attacking Google reviews as a debt collection organization, I think about being able to get my emails, text messages, and phone calls through from Google.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think about the first thing that that consumer is going to do and the generational change over time here as well.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I think about how I would react to receiving a letter, a text message, and email from a collection organization.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Then I think about how my wife might react or respond to that coming from a different culture and in a different age bracket.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: For me, I'm going straight to Google, right?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna see those Google reviews and all of that.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: For her, she's gonna go either straight to Gemini or Chat GPT.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: She's gonna ask the LLM, look for that more robust response, but then she's gonna make some decisions based on it.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Gemini is still gonna be feeding from those Google reviews, but I also believe that the Chat GPT's perplexities, clauds, and other LLM tools are are still using that as a signal or a citation opportunity as consumers are asking questions about an organization.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Any insights into anything that you guys have seen or heard about how consumers have been able to or where they've found new digital trust signals?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can't say for certain about the uh you know, the chat GPTs or the AI search functions, but I can, you know, personally I know that when I'm trying to find if a company's reputable or not, I'm gonna go to Google.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, from a a from a digital trust signal perspective, that's what I've seen is this growth of the LLMs leveraging, the Google reviews and looking at those types of trust signals.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Some organizations have decided to go out to third parties like a trust pilot or other tools that are meant to be these locations of digital trust or stewards of you know digital trust.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm, and maybe it's because I'm a Google shareholder, but I'm a big Google fan for what these things you know are.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's where people are going to continue to go and search, whether it be AI overview, whether it be any of the other Google tools that ultimately are coming together here.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that this is an opportunity for us at the forefront of new communication technology to influence how the consumers are being educated.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're fighting online in social media with the TikTok videos and the bad advice that they're getting from YouTube and other locations of unqualified people giving financial advice that they clearly don't understand.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the digital trust is one of those ways that we're able to actively offset those types of challenges.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as you've over the years, have you found as your marketing has become stronger, as your digital presence in trust has become stronger, that you're organized like that you've been able to, let's say, better communicate or more smoothly communicate with consumers over that time period?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think that uh it definitely trans, at least from feedback from the staff and the collectors, it makes the conversation a lot easier.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: If uh they're speaking to somebody and you know, might they might have questions about your organization, you're like, okay, well, we have 4.7 on Google and we have an A- and accreditation with the BBB, it just makes uh that that call flow a lot smoother and break down some of those barriers that the customer might have with the collector.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's that automatic trust.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think people realize how difficult it is to collect Google reviews.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something easily faked.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: It requires a you know a separate Gmail account and that all of these consumers have actively taken this proactive step towards towards leaving a review.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's part of the reason that the level of trust for those reviews is so much higher because of the level of difficulty in creating and maintaining fake reviews.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: And Google's gotten really good at identifying what's not real.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it adds a lot, I would think it adds a lot more pride to the process for you guys as you're going through and having these successes, knowing that those successes can't be faked.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you'd asked me the same question three years ago, I would have said there's plenty of fake reviews online.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I know Google has done multiple sweeps in the last 24 months now that their AI technology has improved so dramatically.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's definitely uh you could, I guess you could tell what was fake and wasn't fake if you were actively looking for it.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, you click into some reviews and you see that somebody's had 50 reviews over their the course of their Google account, it kind of I guess uh substantiates the legitimacy of that specific review.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Fair.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: As we've you know, as you've gone through this growth process and you've developed this digital trust, any lessons that you've learned that you would impart to the industry in terms of how it's gone for you?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not gonna happen overnight.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: You need to set your goals and uh be prepared for a lengthy time horizon for these things to take effect.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, it just starts with initiatives internally and culture.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we've been fortunate enough working with you guys since probably 2020 that we already had a very strong SEO footprint.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: So when we started to actively apply the reviews, that there was already a uh an easy you know mechanism for the consumer to look us up.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're not uh turning to the second page of Google, they're we're on the front page.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh well, along with all the community work that you guys do, and that's why it's been a lot of fun to work with you through the years, because of all the things that your organization is doing in your local community supporting veterans, charities, and other things, I start looking at the digital trust signals and saying, look at all of these incredible things that start to come together.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because the digital trust is the Google reviews and the pieces and a solid website and all of that.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's the social media, but it's the combination of all of these things together that I think is what really starts to drive that trust from a consumer standpoint because wherever they go to look you up, there's good information, right?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's accurate, there's an accurate representation, and it's talking about what your organization is doing and what it's doing in the local communities.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh obviously it's it feels good and it's nice to be able to contribute to charities and foundations or sports teams that we do here at Spire, but you know, you get the auxiliary benefit of being able to uh substantiate yourself through some of your posts, and that again reaches the consumer.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just uh a big conducive ecosystem.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Joseph, it sounds like you guys have found the path that works best for you.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad it's it's been exciting to see this kind of evolve through the years and how you've been able to continue to drive that.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: I look forward to learning more from you over the coming years as you guys continue through these digital trust efforts.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: For those of you that are watching, if you have additional questions you'd like to ask Joseph or myself, you can leave those in the comments here on LinkedIn and YouTube, and we'll be responding to those.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you have additional topics you'd like to see us discuss, you can leave those in the comments below as well.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: And hopefully I can get Joseph back at least one more time to help me continue to create great content for a great industry.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: But Joseph, thank you so much for coming on, sharing your insights today.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: I really do appreciate your time.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you, Adam.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you everybody for watching.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: We appreciate your time and attention.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you all again soon.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Bye, everyone.