In partnership with Elephants Don’t Forget, Phillips & Cohen Associates, LTD. (PCA), a leading provider of deceased account management solutions, has won the Best Use of Technology – Partnership Award at the Credit Awards 2025.
This joint award further acknowledges the significant impact of “Clever Nelly,” Elephants Don’t Forget’s multi-award-winning continual assessment and employee competence improvement solution, on enhancing employee experience and reducing agent-based errors within PCA’s operations.
This year’s Credit Awards – held on July 2nd, 2025, at the Celtic Manor in Wales – remains the industry’s premier event. The judging panel, which included senior financial services professionals, specifically noted the innovative application of Clever Nelly to improve both employee and customer experience.
They commented:
“This partnership showcases an innovative solution that has significantly enhanced operational efficiency, reduced risk and elevated customer experience. Their success is powered by competent agents backed by quantifiable data – a strong combination.”
PCA recognised that the complexities of the frontline agent role were challenging to embed and develop in new starters. Unable to quantify employee knowledge gaps at scale and in line with global growth, they became interested in the potential of deploying Clever Nelly in 2019.
Clever Nelly delivers PCA’s training content to agents as personalised learning interventions in the flow of work, taking, on average, under one minute per day to complete. This continual assessment approach automatically identifies and addresses knowledge gaps efficiently, with the AI adjusting content and frequency to meet individual learner needs. By breaking down large knowledge topics into smaller, consumable pieces of learning, Clever Nelly enables PCA to accelerate speed-to-competence, provide evidence of employee compliance, and improve competence on an ongoing basis.
With over 99,510 learning interventions taking place in the last 12 months, the partnership was commended for its unique ability to personalise and scale tailored training to better support employees in becoming proficient in their roles.
Clever Nelly has also been a critical success factor in supporting the business to save productive time by reducing unnecessary training hours, reducing employee attrition, improving Quality Assurance, and reducing high-risk errors. A recent case study provided by PCA discusses how the partnership supported PCA US in reducing agent errors and attributing this to $1.5 million in annual savings.
Commenting on the award win, PCA stated:
“This recognition highlights the power of collaboration and innovation in creating more intelligent, compliant, and compassionate collections experiences. By combining PCA’s specialist expertise in deceased account management with Elephants Don’t Forget’s AI technology, we’ve improved how sensitive accounts are handled – with consistency, care, and confidence. A big thank you to our dedicated team, whose commitment to excellence and empathy drives everything we do.”
Nick Cherry, Chief Operating Officer at PCA added:
“Thanks to everyone at Elephants Don’t Forget for their support and creativity. This is what effective partnerships look and feel like!”
Curtis Vincent, Chief Human Resources Officer at PCA, added:
“I am proud and honoured for PCA to have won the Best Use Technology – Partnership award alongside Elephants Don’t Forget – particularly considering the strong group of shortlisted businesses within the category. Aside from helping to achieve recognition such as this, we firmly believe in Clever Nelly’s power and the positive results she brings to PCA.”
Adrian Harvey, Chairman and Co-founder of Elephants Don’t Forget, added:
” Technology is part of the CX – it is NOT the CX. The demise of the human in the process has been exaggerated. PCA uses Clever Nelly to ensure all their humans are competent to serve their customers – and enjoy their work! A good win for all.”
