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MCR City’s income team was hitting their activity targets but missing their outcomes. Calls were being made, letters sent, visits logged, yet arrears cases kept escalating at the same rate. The cost of each escalated case, when you factor in legal fees, staff time, and void risk, averaged over £1,200. Leadership knew the process wasn’t working but couldn’t identify where or why. Without that diagnosis, every improvement initiative was essentially a guess.
We mapped the complete arrears journey, not the process as MCR City designed it, but the experience as residents actually lived it. Through structured interviews with residents at different stages of the arrears cycle and behavioural analysis of contact data, we identified six specific moments where the current approach was actively damaging the relationship rather than rebuilding it. The most significant finding: initial contact was being made too formally, too late, and through the wrong channel for the resident’s communication preferences, triggering avoidance rather than engagement. Residents weren’t ignoring MCR City because they didn’t care. They were disengaging because the contact felt threatening rather than supportive. That distinction, invisible in the data alone, was costing the organisation six figures annually.
MCR City restructured their early intervention approach around the six moments we identified, adjusting channel, tone, timing, and staff approach at each stage. We built a measurement framework before implementation so results could be tracked cleanly: case resolution rates by stage, contact to engagement conversion, and escalation volumes. Within two quarters, unresolved cases fell 47%. Legal referrals dropped by 31%. The income team’s confidence, tracked via internal pulse surveys, rose significantly, with officers reporting they felt better equipped to have difficult conversations. The ROI on the engagement was recovered within the first four months of implementation.
Rent & Arrears Collection Manager
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