We’ve discussed the advantages of machine learning based collections before, that’s because cost to collect drops significantly, the system’s flexibility allows more thorough and diligent handling of accounts, and—when done well—is better at liquidation than a call center. These systems have another advantage: they inherently provide better collection compliance than call centers. Why?
For three reasons:
Predictability. In a machine-based approach, communications are pre-written. Whether they’re proactive (trying to get the customer to engage) or reactive (following up on customer responses). This means that content and offer strategy can be determined in advance, reducing surprises and the chances of going off script. The system doesn’t have the option of variability.
Real-time monitoring. Thanks to the low number of human-to-human interactions, that are very hard to effectively track in real-time, system operators can monitor what is occurring at any given moment. They are able to track: who’s on the website, who’s in conversation, what stage of recovery they are in, and what has been offered to them. Each and every action is filtered by the system’s Compliance Firewall to prevent violations and parameters can be modified in a controlled process (e.g., allowing lower settlements on specific segments or changing communication frequency in one of the states). Checking on the health of the operation and identifying potential problems beforehand becomes a much less daunting task with powerful monitoring tools.
Auditability. With a machine-based system, it is much easier to identify what happened and why. Since it maintains a log of all of its actions, operators can trace the source of specific communication decisions or offers that were made to a consumer. Since everything is logged in real-time, operators can audit a log of consumer behaviors and see how the system interacted with them, what they told agents, and how their issue was resolved. Quality is a quantifiable measurement that can be tweaked and improved.
The bottom line is that a machine-based collections platform is a valuable complement to a call center. Beyond its monetary impact and liquidation returns, it offers unprecedented monitoring and control functions, making it an inherently more compliant solution.
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