Tag: automated solution

This article was updated on January 31, 2024. Debt. For many, it’s a struggle – and a constant one. In fact, total consumer debt balances have increased year-over-year.1 High inflation and fears of a recession aren't letting up either. Successful third-party debt collections can be achieved by investing in the right data and technologies. Overcoming debt collections challenges While third-party debt collectors may take a more specialized approach to collections, they face unique challenges. Debt collectors must find the debtor, get them to respond, collect payment, and stay compliant. With streamlined processes and enhanced strategies, lending institutions and collection agencies can recoup more costs.  Embrace automationAutomation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are at the forefront of the continued digital transformation within the world of collections. When implemented well, automation can ease pressure on call center agents and improve the customer experience. Automated systems can also help increase recovery rates while minimizing the risk of human error and the corresponding liability. READ: Three Tips for Successful Automated Debt CollectionsMaximize digitalizationIntegrating and expanding digital technologies is mandatory to be successful in the third-party debt collections space. Third-party debt collectors must be at the forefront of adopting digital communication tools (i.e., email, text, chatbots, and banking apps), to connect more easily with debtors and provide a frictionless customer experience. A digital debt recovery solution helps third-party debt collectors streamline processes, maintain debt collection compliance, and maximize collections efforts. READ: The Ultimate Guide to Successful Debt Collection TechniquesLeverage the best data Consumer data is ever-changing, especially during times of economic distress. Capturing accurate consumer information through a combination of data sources — and continually evaluating the data’s validity — is key to reducing risk throughout the consumer life cycle. By gaining a fresher, more complete view of existing and potential customers, third-party debt collectors can better determine an individual’s propensity to pay and enhance their overall decisioning. Keep pace with changing regulations With increasing scrutiny on the financial services industry and ever-evolving consumer protection and privacy regulations, remaining compliant is a top priority for third-party debt collections departments and agencies. The increased focus on regulations and compliance has also brought to the surface the need for teams to include debt collectors with soft skills who can communicate effectively with indebted consumers. With the right processes and third-party debt collections tools, you can better develop a robust compliance management strategy that works to prevent reputational risk and minimize costly violations. Finding the right debt collections partner In today's climate, it's never been more important to build the right third-party debt collections strategies for your business. By creating a more effective, consumer-focused collections process, you can maximize your recovery efforts, make more profitable decisions and focus your resources where they’re needed most. Our third-party debt management solutions empower your organization to see the complete behavioral, demographic, and emerging view of customer portfolios through extensive data assets, debt collection predictive analytics innovative platforms. For more insights to strengthen your debt collection strategy, download our tip sheet. Access tip sheet

This article was updated on January 30, 2024. Income verification is a critical step in determining a consumer’s ability to pay. The challenge is verifying income in a way that’s seamless for both lenders and consumers. While many businesses have already implemented automated solutions to streamline operations, some are still relying on manual processes built on older technology. Let’s take a closer look at the drawbacks of traditional verification processes and how Experian can help businesses deliver frictionless verification experiences. The drawbacks of traditional income verification Employment and income verification provides lenders with greater visibility into consumers’ financial stability. But it often results in high-touch, high-friction experiences when done manually. This can be frustrating for both lenders and potential borrowers: For lenders: Manual verification processes are extremely tedious and time-consuming for lenders as it requires physically collecting and reviewing documents. Additionally, without reliable income data, it can be difficult for lenders to accurately determine a consumer’s ability to pay, leading to higher origination risk. For borrowers: Today’s consumers have grown accustomed to digital experiences that are fast, simple, and convenient. A verification process that is slow and manual may cause consumers to drop off altogether. How can this process be optimized? To accelerate the verification process and gain a more complete view of consumers’ financial stability, lenders must look to automated solutions. With automated income verification, lenders obtain timely income reports to accurately verify consumers’ income in minutes rather than days or weeks. Not only does this allow lenders to approve more applicants quickly, but it also enables them to devote more time and resources toward improving their strategies and enhancing the customer experience. The right verification solution can also capture a wider variety of income scenarios. With the click of a button, consumers can give lenders permission to access their financial accounts, including checking, savings, 401k, and brokerage accounts. This creates a frictionless verification experience for consumers as their income information is quickly extracted and reviewed. Retrieving data directly from financial accounts also provides lenders with a fuller financial picture of consumers, including those with thin or no credit files. This helps increase the chances of approval for underserved communities and allows lenders to expand their customer base without taking on additional risk.1 Learn more 1 Experian Income Verification Product Sheet (2017).

Automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning are at the forefront of the continued digital transformation within the world of collections. And organizations from across industries — including healthcare, financial services and the public sector — are learning how automated debt collection can improve their workflows and strategies. When implemented well, automation can ease pressure from call center agents, which can be especially important when there's a tight labor market and retention is top of mind for every employer. Automated systems can also help improve recovery rates while minimizing the risk of human error and the corresponding liability. These same systems can increase long-term customer satisfaction and lifetime value. Deeper insights into consumers' financial situations and preferences allow you to avoid wasting resources and making contact when consumers are truly unable to pay. Instead, monitoring and following up with their preferred contact method can be a more successful approach — and a better experience for consumers. Three tips for automated debt collection Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) aren't new to collections. You may have heard about or tried automated dialing systems, chatbots, text message services and virtual negotiators. But the following three points can be important to consider as the technology and compliance landscapes change. 1. Good automation depends on good data Whether you're using static automated systems to improve efficiencies or using a machine learning model that will adapt over time, the data you feed into the system needs to be accurate. The data can be internal, from call center agents and your customers, and external sources can help verify and expand on what you know. With your internal systems, consider how you can automate processes to limit human errors. For example, you may be able to auto-fill contact information for customers and agents — saving them time and avoiding typos that can cause issues later. External data sources can be helpful in several ways. You can use third-party data as a complementary resource to help determine the best address, phone number or email address to increase right-party contact (RPC) rates. External sources can also validate your internal data and automatically highlight errors or potentially outdated information, which can be important for maintaining compliance. Robust and frequently updated datasets can make your collection efforts more efficient and effective. An automated system could be notified when a debtor resurfaces or gets a new job, triggering new reminders or requests for payment. And if you're using the right tools, you can automatically route the account to internal or external servicing and prioritize accounts based on the consumer's propensity to pay or the expected recovery amount. LEARN MORE: Advanced analytics involves using sophisticated techniques and tools to analyze complex datasets and extract valuable insights. Learn about the benefits of advanced analytics in delinquent debt collection. 2. Expand consumers' communication options and choices Your automated systems can suggest when and who to contact, but you'll also want them to recommend the best way to contact consumers. An omnichannel strategy and digital-first approach is increasingly the preferred method by consumers, who have become more accustomed to online communications and services. In fact, companies with omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain on average 89% of their customers compared to 33% of retention rates for companies with weak omnichannel strategies. Organizations can benefit by using alternative communication methods, such as push notifications, as part of an AI-driven automated process. These can be unobtrusive reminders that gently nudge customers without bothering them, and send them to self-cure portals. Many consumers may need to review the payment options before committing — perhaps they need to check their account balances or ask friends or family for help. Self-service options through an app or web portal can give them choices, such as a single payment or payment plan, without having to involve a live agent. 3. Maintaining compliance must be a priority Organizations need to be ready to adjust to a rapidly changing compliance environment. Over the last few years, organizations have also had to react to changes that can impact Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) compliance. The automated systems you use should be nimble enough to comply with required changes, and they should be able to support your overall operation's compliance. In particular, you may want to focus on how automated systems collect, verify, safeguard and send consumers' personal information. Why partner with Experian? Whether you're looking to explore or expand your use of automated systems in your collection efforts, you want to make sure you're taking the right approach. Experian helps clients balance effective collections and a great customer experience within their given constraints, including limited budgets and regulatory compliance. The Experian Ascend Intelligence Platform and award-winning PowerCurve® Collections solutions are also making AI-driven automated systems accessible to more lenders and collectors than ever before. Taking a closer look at Experian's offerings, we can focus on three particular areas: Industry-leading data sources Experian's data sources go well beyond the consumer credit database, which has information on over 245 million consumers. Clients can also benefit from alternative financial services data, rental payment data, modeled income estimates, information on collateral and skip tracing data. And real-time access to information from over 5,000 local exchange carriers, which can help you validate phone ownership and phone type. Tools for maximizing recovery rates Experian helps clients turn data into insights and decisions to determine the best next step. Some of Experian's offerings include: Collection AdvantageSM: A one-stop shop for comprehensive and efficient debt collection, Collection AdvantageSM allows you to segment, prioritize and make contact on collections accounts by leveraging speciality collection scoring models. PriorityScore for CollectionsSM: Over 60 industry-specific debt recovery scores that can help you prioritize accounts based on the likelihood to pay or expected recovery amount. RecoveryScore 2.0: Helps you prioritize charged-off accounts based on collectability. TrueTrace™ and TrueTrace Live™: Find consumers based on real-time contact information. We've seen a 10 percent lift in RPC with clients who use Experian's locating tools, TrueTrace or TrueTrace Live. Collection Triggers℠: Sometimes, waiting is the best option. And with an account monitoring tool like Collection Triggers℠, you'll automatically get notified when it makes sense to reach out. RPC contact scores: Tools like Phone Number ID™ and Contact Monitor™ can track phone numbers, ownership and line type to determine how to contact consumers. Real-time data can also increase your RPC rates while limiting your risk. LEARN MORE: See how Collection Triggers can help you establish a more profitable debt collection strategy to increase recovery rates. You can use these, and other, tools to prioritize collection efforts. Experian clients also use different types of scores that aren't always associated with collections to segment and prioritize their collection efforts, including bankruptcy and traditional credit-based scores. Custom models based on internal and external scores can also be beneficial, which Experian can help you build, improve and house. Prioritize collections activities with confidence Collections optimization comes down to making the right contact at the right time via the right channel. Equally important is making sure you're not running afoul of regulations by making the wrong contact. Experian's data standards and hygiene measures can help you: Identify consumers who require special handling Validate email addresses and identify work email addresses Get notified when a line type or phone ownership changes Append new contact information to a consumer's file Know when to reach out to consumers to update contact information and permissions Recommend the best way to reach consumers Automated tools can make these efforts easier and more accurate, leading to a better consumer experience that increases the customer's lifetime value and maximizes your recovery efforts. Learn more

Investing in a strong customer acquisition strategy is critical to attracting leads and converting them into high-value customers. In this blog post, we’ll be focusing on one of the first stages of the customer acquisition process: the application stage. Challenges with online customer application processes When it comes to the customer application stage, speed, ease, and convenience are no longer nice-to-haves — they are musts. But various challenges exist for lenders and consumers in terms of online credit or account application processes, including: Limited digital capabilities. Consumers have grown more reliant on digital channels, with 52% preferring to use digital banking options over banking at branches. That said, financial institutions should prioritize the digital customer experience or risk falling behind the competition. The length of applications. Whether it’s a physical or digital application, requiring consumers to provide a substantial amount of information about themselves and their past can be frustrating. In fact, 67% of consumers will abandon an application if they experience complications. Potential human error. Because longer, drawn-out applications require various steps and data inputs, consumers may leave fields blank or make errors along the way. This can create more friction and delays as consumers may potentially be driven offline and into branches to get their applications sorted out. Improve the speed and accuracy of online credit applications Given that consumers are more likely to abandon their applications if their experience is friction-filled, financial institutions will need an automated, data-driven solution to simplify and streamline the online form completion process. Some of the benefits of leveraging an automated solution include: Improved customer experiences. Shortening time-to-value starts with faster decisioning. By using accurate consumer data and automation to prefill parts of the online credit application, you can reduce the amount of information applicants are required to enter, leading to lower abandonment rates, less potential for manual error, and enhanced user experiences. Fraud prevention. Safeguarding consumer information throughout the credit application process is crucial. By leveraging intelligent identity verification solutions, you can securely and compliantly identify consumer identities while ensuring data isn’t released in risky situations. Then by using identity management solutions, you can gain a connected, validated customer view, resulting in minimized end-user friction. Faster approvals. With automated data prefill and identity verification, you can process applications more efficiently, leading to faster approvals and increased conversions. Choosing the right partner Experian can help optimize your customer application process, making it faster, more efficient, and less error prone. This way, you can win more customers and improve digital experiences. Learn more about Experian’s customer acquisition solutions.

Previously, the Global Identity and Fraud Report called for businesses to meet consumer expectations for online recognition and security while improving the digital experience. Organizations have answered this call with investments and new initiatives, but the fraud risk persists and consumers are relying on businesses to protect them. In our latest report, we explore the issues associated with siloed recognition processes, consumer expectations and preferences, and effective risk strategies.   We surveyed more than 6,000 consumers and 1,800 businesses worldwide about this connection for our 2022 Global Identity and Fraud Report.   This year’s report dives into:   How online security yields engagement and trust with today’s digital consumers The role of businesses in protecting online consumers, and the associated benefits The current opportunity for businesses to implement multiple identity and fraud solutions The role that orchestration and outsourcing play in helping companies prevent fraud   To earn consumer trust and loyalty, organizations need to leverage automated solutions to identify and protect consumers across their online journeys while providing seamless recognition and low-friction fraud prevention with a robust and flexible fraud platform. To learn more about our findings and how to implement an effective solution, download Experian’s 2022 Global Identity and Fraud Report. Read the report Review your fraud strategy