Using Technology to Increase Efficiency in the Collections Industry

The collections industry has come a long way in its technological prowess, making the process of collecting unpaid debts easier across the board, despite tough economic times.  With a wide scope of technological platforms and software available, your collections agency can operate smarter and more efficiently, allowing your staff to prioritize and plan their strategies better. 

Many software platforms offer unlimited configuration capabilities and an intuitive user interface. For example, there are platforms which provide each user with a personalized view of the system, depending on their role in your company.  This means that software can be customized depending on who is viewing the screen: Reps and Agents, Supervisors and Manager, Executives and Accountants, Creditors and Debtors, Analysts and System Administrators.  This allows you to organize your collections operations in a hierarchy of groups, collectors, supervisors and external users to define automatic case assignment decision rules.

As additional components, with many software platforms created specifically for the collections industry, you can:

·         Assign collection tasks among different collector groups, agents and back-office support groups.

·   Include creditors and debtors for approval of payment arrangements, deduction or settlement authorizations.

·    Automate case assignment rules among different collection groups and task assignment rules for support groups.

·         Establish special rules and conditions for collecting cases based on each client contract.

·         Trigger alerts according to collections performance, activity or inactivity.

·         Know the best language to contact your debtors.

·        Allow foreign language speaking agents to use the software application in their first language.

·    Assign accounts that have a preferred foreign language to a sub-group of agents that speak their language.

·        Customize application alerts and messages according to user language.

·    Send communications such as letters, emails, SMS and other reminders in the debtor’s preferred language.

·       Set a schedule of automatic and suggested actions according to the case profile.

·      Trigger different collection stages based on case aging and elapsed time from placement.

·       Ensure consistency in planned follow-up actions and maintain fluid communications with debtors.