Author: Raja Datta

Email Deliverability in Debt Collection: Six Key Questions to Ask Your Provider

By on October 23rd, 2023 in Customer Experience, Industry Insights, Product and Technology, User Experience
The blog title set in front of an image of someone checking their email.

Did you know one of the most common reasons for missing a payment is because customers simply forget to pay their bill?

But staying top of mind for consumers is harder than ever using traditional call-and-collect methods considering stricter compliance regulations and the fact that 94% of unidentified calls go unanswered. 

Simply adding email into the communication mix often isn’t enough, and there’s a lot that goes on between hitting “send” and reaching the inbox. For your business to improve performance using digital debt collection, you need a partner with the right expertise. 

Let’s look at six key questions to ask your business partners about email deliverability in debt collection, why each question is important, and how TrueAccord measures up.

1) What is Their Primary Method of Communication in Digital Debt Collection?

Why It Matters
The success of traditional call-and-collect methods are waning compared to modern digital engagement due to more consumers preferring digital communications, declining right-party contact rates, and increasing compliance restrictions. 

This notion is further proven by recent surveys showing that roughly 40% of consumers prefer to be contacted by email first. And honoring a consumer’s preferences in digital debt collection pays off. In fact, contacting a customer through their preferred channel first can lead to a 10% increase in their payments.

How TrueAccord Measures Up
TrueAccord is a digital first, omnichannel debt collection agency—and has been a leader in digital consumer engagement. The company believes that digital debt collection is a financial service, and needs to cater to the needs of consumers.

2) 2) How Long Have They Used Email as a Form of Communication?

Why It Matters
Many debt collection providers have been slow to adopt digital communication as part of their consumer outreach, and even those who have integrated digital are still refining strategies for optimal outcomes. By choosing a partner who has a history of refining debt recovery email performance, your business will be able to increase collections with strategies that honor consumer preferences.

How TrueAccord Measures Up
From the start of the company in 2013, TrueAccord’s approach to consumer engagement has been digital-first. This notion continues to grow into a robust omni-channel operation through machine learning that’s driven by data from 40 million customer engagements and counting.

3) What is Their Debt Collection Email Delivery Rate?

Why It Matters
Email Delivery Rate refers to the successful transmission of an email from the sender to the recipient’s mail server, measured by emails delivered divided by the number of emails sent. Digital debt collection partners that can achieve a high rate gives your business confidence that communications are getting in front of delinquent customers.

How TrueAccord Measures Up
TrueAccord has a 99% email delivery rate, compared to the average email delivery rate of approximately 90%. It’s one of the main metrics that separates debt recovery email performance of TrueAccord services from the competition.

4) What is Their Email Deliverability Rate?

Why It Matters
Successful email delivery doesn’t mean that it actually makes it into the recipient’s inbox. Deliverability divides how many emails reach the recipient’s inbox, as opposed to their spam folder, by the total number of emails sent. Your domain reputation also has a big impact on email deliverability in debt collection. The better your email reputation, the less likely your communications are to end up in spam folders.

How TrueAccord Measures Up
TrueAccord has a 95% email deliverability rate, compared to the worldwide average of 84.8%.

5) Do They Measure Open Rates and/or Click Rates?

Why It Matters
Measuring open rates (percentage of recipients who opened your email) and click-through rates (percentage of those who clicked on a link in the email) play a dominant role in understanding which communications are resonating with recipients and which are not. With accurate reporting of these crucial debt recovery email performance metrics, your business will be better positioned to optimize your collections strategy.

How TrueAccord Measures Up
TrueAccord has a total open rate 55.19% and total click rate 1.56%, compared to the average industry total open rate of 27.76% and click rate of 1.3%.

6) How Do They Make Adjustments When Email Deliverability and/or Delivery Rates Fluctuate?

Why It Matters
Email delivery and deliverability rates will fluctuate, but how a provider responds and adjusts to these changes is crucial to keeping the rates as high as possible. Every business has unique variables that affect these metrics. By leveraging machine-learning and consumer data, businesses have a better opportunity to keep collection performance high even during times of fluctuation.

How TrueAccord Measures Up
TrueAccord’s dedicated email and deliverability experts proactively monitor and make adjustments, along with using our patented machine learning engine, HeartBeat. This technology helps to improve debt recovery email performance by optimizing communication engagement over time.

Ready to Reach Optimal Consumer Engagement in Your Debt Collection Operations?

Is your business ready to improve its digital debt collection strategy? Start by scheduling a consultation to learn more about what influences email delivery and deliverability rates and how TrueAccord consistently performs above the rest. Our email and deliverability experts are happy to talk through how your debt recovery email performance can be improved. 

Get Started Now»»

Between Hitting “Send” and Reaching the Inbox: The (Hidden) Anatomy of Email

By on August 15th, 2023 in Product and Technology

When it comes to reaching consumers, it’s no secret that email has surpassed phone calls as the preferred method of communication. In fact, 59.5% of consumers prefer email as their first choice for communication.

But just because your business sends emails to consumers doesn’t mean that your messages make it to their inbox. And if that email never reaches the intended recipient, it doesn’t matter what that customer’s preferred method of communication may be.

There are more factors than you may realize that go into whether or not your email reaches the consumer’s inbox, so let’s look at the hidden anatomy of email and the factors that influence where your emails end up.

What’s the Difference Between Mail Servers, Mailbox Providers, ISPs, and ESPs?

Before we look at what happens when you hit “send” on that email, it’s important to identify some of the key components that operate behind the scenes to get your message from point A to point B.

  • Mail Server: A mail server (also known as a mail transfer agent or MTA) is an application that receives incoming email from the sender and forwards outgoing messages for delivery to the recipient.
  • Mailbox Provider: A mailbox provider provides email hosting and implements email servers to send, receive, accept, and store email for the recipient.
  • ISPs: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide internet. Although ISPs can provide email services, separate ESPs are often used for business email operations—but ISPs play a major role in email delivery and landing in the recipient’s inbox.
  • ESPs: Email service providers (ESPs) are a service that enables businesses to send emails and email campaigns to a list of subscribers.

How Does Email Actually Work?

When you hit the “send” button, your ESP sends the email to the recipient’s mail server through various protocols such as SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). The delivery process involves establishing a connection with the recipient’s mail server, transferring the email content, and receiving a response indicating whether the email was accepted or rejected by the mailbox provider.

Several key factors play into whether an email gets tagged in spam or junk or filtered into “social” or “promotion” categories.

  • Mailbox providers and anti-spam filters make inbox placement decisions based on a 30-day rolling history of sender reputation metrics
  • Inbox placement is based on the subscriber’s interaction, regardless of your business model
  • All types of emails are subject to the same filtering, regardless of content

At TrueAccord, every time we send an email our email providers notify us of events like delivered, open, click, hard bounce (such as an email being sent to an invalid or nonexistent email address), soft bounce (typically an indicator of a temporary technical issue on the recipients’ end), and spam complaints.

In the case of bounces, TrueAccord stores that data and categorizes it as not delivered. Emails that result in a soft bounce are temporary bounces and could get delivered within 72 hours. For hard bounces, we will not send to those again—or it severely hurts our reputation among ESPs and ISPs. For Regulation F compliance when delivering disclosures electronically, debt collectors are required to monitor for deliverability. TrueAccord presumes that any hard bounce or undelivered soft-bounce (one that is not delivered after 72 hours of the first soft bounce) has not been delivered.

Why are ISPs So Selective?

the ISPs are selective on what emails get accepted and which actually reach the inbox. But there are three key initiatives ISPs consider:

  • To protect email account owners from:
  • Spam
  • Scams
  • Poor experience
  • To protect and prioritize company resources:
  • Limited email engines i.e. mail servers
  • Limited bandwidth
  • Limited personnel or internal expertise
  • To continue driving revenue:
  • Lower email interaction reduces ad impressions and revenue
  • Too many emails can lead to account abandonment from subscribers

Best Practices to Get Your Emails Delivered

Understanding the different components of email, how it actually works, and the selective filters in place to protect consumers are all important to a successful email program. Now let’s look at several best practices to follow:

  • Build and maintain a positive sender reputation with ISPs and ESPs
  • Ensure good email list hygiene
  • Send to actively engaged subscribers
  • Maintain consistent volume and cadence (avoid spikes)
  • Avoid spammy subject lines
  • Develop valuable content that would engage subscribers

While many of these best practices may seem like no-brainers, achieving them can take more skill and effort than most businesses expect. Each of these contribute to email delivery rates and more importantly, deliverability to recipients’ inboxes—key drivers towards consumer engagement and your bottom line.

Ready to step up your engagement with better email strategies? Schedule a consultation to get started »»