Automation and digitization offer new tools for the collection strategist, augmenting the traditional building blocks for your debt collection strategy. These new tools, introducing flexibility and sophistication that are usually attributed to other parts of the business, can mitigate common pitfalls.
In this series, adapted from our free eBook Automating Debt Collection 101, we’ll review the three major areas where automation and digitization can boost a collection strategy:
- Early contacts and improved segmentation
- Persistent communication
- Improved customer satisfaction
In this first part, we’ll focus on using automation to facilitate early contacts and improved segmentation.
Automated collections are scalable. This means communicating with all customers as early as possible in the collection cycle, quickly working to resolution with those who can pay, and a more robust debt collection strategy. In traditional call-center collections, up to 50% of meaningful interactions are made within the first 30 days of communication. With an automated strategy, most of that value can be captured in a much more cost-effective manner, in a much shorter time span. No more guessing who to call first because everyone can be contacted at scale.
Further, automated and digital collections create a wealth of data that cannot be gleaned form calls. User clicks and browsing, time and day of activity and more. The data can be used to segment accounts to those who are engaged, those who’ll respond better to phones, and those who should be sold or handled in other ways. It allows much more flexible recall criteria than placing for a set number of months, no matter what happens with the account. This means giving accounts the treatment they need at the right time, improving liquidation as well as cost to collect thanks to the scale of operations.
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