How debt collection applications are revolutionizing the industry

By on January 8th, 2019 in Industry Insights
TrueAccord Blog

For years, traditional debt collectors have relied on outmoded and ineffectual techniques to collect money owed… but that is all changing.

Debt collection applications are revolutionizing the industry, utilizing machine-learning and AI to create a highly-effective and more convenient process for everyone. Traditional debt collectors don’t want you to know this, but the digitization and automation of the industry is producing breath-taking results. Here’s how…

Convenient communication lines

The world has never been more connected, but the way in which we communicate is changing. The average American aged 18 to 24 now sends 67 texts per day and receives 61. The telephone call is becoming less relevant by the hour, which means we need a new way to speak to our customers. Debt collection applications are ditching the call center-based communication lines of the past in favor of modern forms of messaging. Customers can now respond to emails and text messages when the time is convenient for them. Where traditional debt collection agencies may have called a debtor up to 10 times a day to try to get a response, companies such as TrueAccord can contact customers three times per week. That’s a huge saving in money and resources, plus the customer won’t come away from the experience feeling harassed.

Highly adaptable

When you’re looking to retrieve as much money as possible from debtors speed is vital. Up to half of all your meaningful interactions will be made within the first month of communications. After that the success rate dwindles. But when you’ve got a number of debtors to contact, how do you know who to contact first? Legacy collection agencies are constricted by the number of call center workers they have and how quickly they can work. Debt collection applications are highly-scalable with automated communications easily created in a much shorter time period. That means no matter how many debtors a company might have, each can be contacted very early on in the debt cycle.

Flexible payment solutions

Traditional debt collectors largely rely on a one-size-fits-all approach to payment solutions. Typically a customer in debt will have to call the debt collection agency to make a payment or organize monthly payments to work off their debt. However, this method really isn’t convenient for everyone. Debt collection applications can use a digital, self-managed process to create a personalized repayment plan that works for them. This makes it much easier for the customer to work themselves out of debt and into a far healthier financial position. For the customer, the process is much fairer and easier to process. For the business, it could be the difference between keeping the client on-board or losing them.

Compliance friendly

When you are relying on call centers to facilitate communications, every call is a compliance risk. Humans are driven by biases, emotions, even how much sleep they’ve had. They can be manipulated into unwittingly breaking rules or simply making mistakes. Debt collection applications have removed those issues. Digital communications can be pre-approved by a team of lawyers before they are sent to the client to ensure they comply with the ever-changing rules of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. At TrueAccord, we use code-based communication which further enhances the protection we can offer. Whenever a rule or regulation is changed, we make an easy update or modification to the code to keep all communications compliant.

Happy customers

For hundreds of years, debt collectors have enjoyed a less-than-favourable reputation. Their recovery tactics were often intimidating and confusing for the customer — we know that from personal experience. However, TrueAccord’s digital-first approach engages with customers in a way they are comfortable with. No more threatening or harassing phone calls to deal with. We use specialist content creators to write our communications in a friendly, clear and unintimidating fashion. We also encourage customers to take control of their own debt and regain financial health. This client-focused approach increases customer retention and gives the client a more positive debt collection experience than they would have ever received previously.

As we’ve seen from the above examples, debt collection applications really are revolutionizing the industry. Almost every facet of the process has been improved through a digital-first and data-driven approach offering better results and an improved experience for everyone involved. To start using one of TrueAccord’s debt collection applications, contact us today.

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