Until a few years ago, the personal qualities of collections professional could have been shared with those of bad supervisors or hard coaches, according to executives currently in the field.  

For many years the dominant overall industry model, these executives explained, tended to see people delinquent on loans as potential deadbeats and often favored impatience, intimidation, meanness and even threats in an attempt to make debtors pay what they owed.

Times have changed since then, and the traits of a good collections professional now owe more to the fields of psychology, sales and financial education than they do to boxing, bookmaking or loan sharking.