provident agents [TEXT DELETED BY FORUM TEAM]

speckyfoureyes

Does anyone get any help from their managers I know we never did. I have lost my agency and my ADM knew this was on the cards had got her best friend started and let my agency go down so I would get the sack and she could put her best friend into it.

MinnieMousesMummy

I have just been reading this thread, it is a bit concerning what has been getting said as my partner has just started with them. I have my reservations about it, as he has been told he can earn £300 a week but I question whether this is true. He has yet to actually be paid anything and from what he has told me I think it might actually cost him to do the work rather than him making money from it.

TheLoanMan

It's a genuine job but certainly not as good as it used to be, used to be that you could earn good money for a couple of days work and fit it in with your other work or family commitments. Now seemingly they want agents to work full time so much worse proposition now as you have no employee benefits and can be sacked any time with no notice as other people have said.

I noticed the share price under pressure recently, first time for awhile, be interesting to know what's going on behind the scenes.

demoralised

TheLoanMan wrote: »

It's a genuine job but certainly not as good as it used to be, used to be that you could earn good money for a couple of days work and fit it in with your other work or family commitments. Now seemingly they want agents to work full time so much worse proposition now as you have no employee benefits and can be sacked any time with no notice as other people have said.

I noticed the share price under pressure recently, first time for awhile, be interesting to know what's going on behind the scenes.

The share price is probably under pressure because some investors have now realised that the present management team have absolutely no idea how to run a home credit company, fair dues they have created a credit card suitable for the sub prime market, and many other things, but have ruined what was a very profitable business for home credit. They can say till the cows come home that it is all due to pressures on households etc but we all know the truth, until they start to treat their agents properly, as they did in the past, they will never get back to where they once were. Agents today are too concerned with hitting targets that allow them to earn a living wage these days, effort they used to put into finding new doors, sales etc. the crackpot commission scheme in place at the moment can mean a loss of over £100 pounds if you collect from 1 customer less than your target says, so of course all your energy is going to go into finding that payment, at the expense of everything else, that may help drive down impairment, but it is also driving down sales and new doors. The only thing that works across the board is a standard commission for all, then what you earn depends on how much effort you put in.

TheLoanMan

Pretty much agree with everything you have said there. Potential customers ringing or applying on line are definitely pushed towards the satsuma product.

There's a long term shift away from home collected.

TheLoanMan

I think Mr crook and his cronies have a lot to answer for, yes they've created a poor man's barclay card from a standing start, that's a huge achievement make no mistake but it's masked the huge miss management and destruction of home collected.

Home collected has long had too many layers of management all basically yes men all to scared to raise questions or object in case it's seen as being negative all pretending to be motivated when really they hate the job.

As demoralised has said they've come up once again with an over complicated bonus scheme, one that encourages agents to put their own money in to achieve targets, it's wrong and your get sacked if you do it but I bet it's going on and the company has to accept some responsibility for creating a scheme and applying enough pressure to create this behaviour.

In 5 minutes I could come up with something better, indeed why not pay 7% a week commission rising to 8% if you put on a nd nb or pur rising to 9% if you put 2 on in a week rising to 10% if you put 3 on in the same week.

Simplicity itself and guess what it rewards agents for growing their agency.

fluffy70

Is there a new push to have existing customers find new customers through referrals? In our local area (Portsmouth) we're seeing a lot of people on facebook going to the Buy and Sell pages etc trying to entice people to apply for a loan through them by giving basic details, These details are then passed to the offices by the existing customer and a call back is done to go through the proper application. It just smacks of irresponsible practice and I wondered if it was a new marketing initiative? OH used to be an agent but he walked when the changes came in a few years ago as he had too many non payers and so was losing money himself

demoralised

Steady on Loan Man, that's even worse than the scheme we are on now, new door are very thin on the ground these days with the increased competion about and leads being pushed in satsumas direction. If that scheme was to come in even more agents would be heading for the hills. The only fair way is same commision for all, we all do the same job after all, and if you can't be bothered to take time to collect properly, or issue responsibly then you will earn less, SIMPLES!! The facebook appeals are about recommend a friend scheme, which pays £30 to customers for leads that go on to have a loan, my fear is it is only a matter of time before the regulators have a hissy fit about this, if Provi is unable to get full licence from FCA because of shady things like this then all our jobs are up the swanny.

TheLoanMan

Lol yep probably needs tweaking the key thing I was trying to express was simplicity, the best ideas usually are. However I don't think you will ever get flat rate commission without conditions again.

The difficulty in recruiting customers whether new doors new business or pur is the real problem here, with customers paying up and others being written off the decline is there for all to see, hard to see where the new customers are going to come from going forward.

Devils_Incarnate

A little food for thought about new customers.
I overheard a conversation between a DM and lets call him a "more superior" within the company, just before Christmas. In the New Year there would be no further leads through portal. All leads were to be self generated by agents, and to "get them motivated ready". It seemed a little strange as the adverts had just started , so where were the new leads going to? I never had any new leads apart from the ones that were foreign and the name had to be spelt letter by letter. Although Home Credit is depleting, the other phoenix's that have risen from the ashes are doing very well. I have a distinct feeling that the surviving agents will become debt collectors for the ones who can't/ don't pay for the new ventures. So it's not all doom and gloom for the investors and majority share holders. One in particular.