Designing a better debt collections experience

In 2016 I co-founded, along with 3 other founders, AVVAY.com. AVVAY is an online marketplace for creative professionals to find and book creative spaces. I led product design, research and frontend development as well as helped the company raise a seed round of funding shortly after we graduated with the Techstars Builder 2018 class.

Traditional debt collection often led to negative experiences for consumers, causing frustration, stress, and poor communication. While engagement is crucial in debt collection, conventional outreach methods typically resulted in low response rates and damaged customer relationships. TrueAccord was founded to modernize this process by leveraging technology to deliver personalized, empathetic interactions at the right time, place, and through the most appropriate channel. By emphasizing consumer-friendly communication, transparency, and support, we aimed to reduce the stigma surrounding debt collection, enhance engagement, and achieve better outcomes for both our customers and the clients we served.

As the first product designer at TrueAccord, I primarily conducted research through indirect and anonymous feedback. I worked closely with our customer care team to gather customer experience data. I also collaborated with our partners and leveraged access to consumer behavior data. This approach helped improve our service by revealing how customers interacted with different types of communications.

I also heavily relied on behavioral and usage data, analyzing our analytics tools to better understand how customers engaged with our emails, SMS messages, and payment portals. This approach helped identify friction points and areas for improvement in the user experience without requiring direct customer interaction, enabling a more effective and scalable product design process.

My design work centered on creating a user-focused, empathetic experience across our website, branding, blog, and collections emails. I began with an industry analysis, examining existing customer pain points and competitors to shape a brand identity and tone that fostered trust. My aim was to develop a simple, intuitive website where customers could easily access their account details, payment options, and educational resources. For collections emails, I concentrated on designing and crafting respectful, solution-oriented messages that alleviated anxiety. Ultimately, I sought to transform the perception of debt collection from negative to supportive, transparent, and approachable—driving better engagement and outcomes for both customers and TrueAccord clients.

Working at TrueAccord presented unique challenges. The main hurdle was balancing empathy in customer-facing designs with the business goal of effective debt recovery. I needed to create a user experience that fostered trust and reduced anxiety while encouraging customers to engage and resolve their debts.

Additionally, as the sole designer on the team, I juggled multiple responsibilities—from branding and UX/UI to creating marketing assets and communications—while working closely with the founders. Another challenge was educating both our internal team and customers about the value of a human-centered approach to debt collection, which was unfamiliar in this traditionally rigid industry.

As an early team member, I played a key role in shaping TrueAccord's customer experience. I introduced a human-centered design approach by creating an intuitive website and empathetic collections emails. These improvements enhanced the company's customer engagement and debt recovery outcomes. I'm proud to have shifted the perception of debt collection, making it more approachable and transparent.

I also played an important role in building a scalable design system that laid the groundwork for the company's rapid growth. This system supported the product as it expanded to serve 20 million customers and secured major clients such as Yelp, LendUp, and Klarna.

Reflecting on my experience, I learned that the debt collection industry presents significant challenges, especially regarding customer engagement and branding. Conducting research with customers in collections proved extremely difficult, as many were hesitant to interact with debt collection companies. Additionally, I faced a substantial challenge in helping to build a brand in this space, given the widespread negative perceptions surrounding debt collection agencies.

A significant insight was the complexity of designing a scalable product to address the diverse reasons customers end up in collections. From accidental missed payments to job loss or intentional avoidance, creating a flexible and empathetic solution for these varied scenarios demanded a nuanced understanding of customer behavior and meticulous design considerations.