Collections Specialist

STEAM LOGISTICS•Chattanooga, TN

About The Position

The Collections Specialist is responsible for managing and collecting outstanding customer balances to support company cash flow and minimize financial risk. This role owns a portfolio of customer accounts and drives timely payment through proactive collections efforts, consistent follow-up, and professional customer communication. In addition, the position is responsible for onboarding new customers with internal systems, performing credit analysis, and supporting ongoing risk management activities. The Collections Specialist collaborates cross-functionally to resolve disputes, remove barriers to payment, and ensure compliance with company credit and collection standards while maintaining strong customer relationships.

Requirements

3+ years of experience in business-to-business collections.
At least 1 year of experience in the transportation or logistics industry.
Experience reviewing commercial business credit reports and supporting ongoing customer risk monitoring.
Experience participating in large account clean-up initiatives, aging reduction efforts, or structured portfolio management.

Responsibilities

Own and manage a portfolio of customer accounts with at least $7M in accounts receivable exposure, maintaining full accountability for collections performance and risk management.
Proactively prioritize and manage past-due balances based on risk level, aging, and customer payment behavior, driving consistent follow-up to resolve delinquencies.
Conduct weekly customer outreach for past-due accounts, beginning with phone calls and followed by professional, documented email communication.
Negotiate and monitor payment plans, ensuring adherence to agreed terms and timely resolution of outstanding balances.
Participate in customer calls and meetings to address payment delays, resolve complex issues, and reinforce clear payment expectations.
Identify high-risk or problematic accounts, escalate concerns with thorough updates to the Credit & collections Manager, and recommend appropriate actions such as credit holds.
Maintain professionalism, firm, and solution-oriented communication, handling sensitive or challenging conversations with confidence while preserving strong customer relationships.
Complete customer onboarding, credit analysis, and account setup, including evaluating creditworthiness, managing credit insurance, and establishing or adjusting credit limits.
Serve as the primary liaison for internal teams (Operations, Billing, Brokers, Portal, and Treasury) to resolve invoice disputes, payment delays, and missing remittance details.
Accurately document all collection activity disputes, communications, and payment commitments in Versa Pay, send weekly statements of account, and respond promptly to customer inquiries.