Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
Even before 2020, forward-thinking call centers had abandoned proven, “old-school” outbound marketing and contact preferences for newer, emergent digital channels. Over the last several months, however, when work shifted to home and all non-family interactions suddenly shifted online, digitisation took center stage. The volume of debit/credit card renewals, customer surveys, COVID-19 FAQs, collections, deferrals, and general financial hardships forced even the most traditional collections call centers to rethink and revamp their strategies.
Because multichannel strategies require minimal administrative overhead and can be managed in the cloud, workforce and manpower disruptions went largely unnoticed for the businesses that were already moving toward an innovative digital shift. For the companies unprepared or ill-equipped to handle this major shift in dynamic, however, the results were catastrophic. On-premise marketing and administration suffered greatly due to localized stay at home orders and global shutdowns. Collections call centers and companies that were able to deliver and maintain proactive contact with customers early in the crisis, reported major reductions in the number of accounts that become delinquent or closed.
This forward-thinking has paid off for many of Aspect clients. For some, the combination of an emphasis on a consistent and cohesive multichannel digital strategy aligned with Aspect’s unique “build once, deploy anywhere” capabilities have produced outstanding results during mass instability.
In 2019, long-time Aspect customer, BAC Credomatic recognized that in order to deliver better customer experiences while also improving collections, they needed to offer a plethora of self-service digital experiences to their customers. While they offered live assistance and general account services online; data indicated that a growing percentage of advanced queries were occurring through voice, email, and SMS. Customers were interested in communicating with BAC through additional channels and wanted to self-serve. While service levels were adequate, BAC sought to reduce the burden of live agents by allowing customers to complete transactions outside of contact center business hours, and when they couldn’t reach a live agent.
We now know that the COVID-19 outbreak forced many businesses to rely on self-service and proactive customer channels. It also forced the rapid deployment of multichannel outbound —such as robocalls, SMS, messaging apps, email, social media, and portals. But even before the pandemic, the businesses that implemented these strategies provided their customers unprecedented access to an always-on, centrally managed, multiple channel interface. These channels were designed to be minimally invasive and cohesive in messaging—which, incidentally, was ideal for the demand and volume service level that 2020 would bring about.
Initial requirements for BAC Credomatic were simple: Develop self-service options for their customers. Easy enough. In building a CX solution, however, there are many unknowns. The most important factor is to build for assumed exponential growth. We like the term “future-proofing.” Aspect® CXP™ allowed BAC Credomatic to develop a comprehensive self-service strategy to support collection activities while allowing for multichannel functionality with built-in scalability.
Proactive channel management has demonstrated the ability to improve customer experience. It’s well documented that multichannel done correctly improves CX. This deeper, more customized experience, in turn, can lead to improved satisfaction rates by maintaining a consistent message and driving interaction for customers. Ensuring seamless consistency in messaging and support for high-value customers is the basis for a successful multichannel strategy and has driven the increased demand for multichannel at BAC Credomatic.
Each month BAC Credomatic assesses the risk of delinquency for each account, and determines what regulations apply to each. Then, the best channel to reach each individual customer is determined (SMS or email) and notifications are sent through the Collections Virtual Agent. Customers can then respond to the notifications by completing an authentication process and viewing the information that is pertinent to their account.
As they’ve observed, strategic digital channel management also helps BAC Credomatic from a regulatory standpoint, especially as further regulations place limits on traditional collections activities. More stringent proposals to limit the number of calls collectors may place are resonating throughout our industry. Digital channels give companies the ability to stay in contact with the consumer while ensuring that the ever-changing regulatory landscape is respected and applied. Next level solutions such as compliance hubs centralize and coordinate all enterprise outbound activities across multiple departments or contact centers with compliant outbound campaign management tools to reach more customers at the right time. These innovative tools have demonstrated that when managed and optimized, self-service and payment methods such as text and portals can reduce collections call center operational costs to a fraction of traditional methods while remaining decisively complaint.
After initially having success developing self-service options for collections, BAC Credomatic and Aspect® CXP™ have since developed over 30 bots supporting 11 different services. Customers were eager to take advantage of BAC Credomatic’s self-service options, and now 30% of interactions are completed outside contact center service hours. Additionally, their digital collections have increased by 12%.
BAC Credomatic has also discovered additional benefits to a multifaceted omnichannel strategy. Through continued use, promotion and reliance on self-service channels, BAC has observed improved accuracy in predicting, planning, and forecasting call center collections KPIs. As we’ve seen, prior to 2020, but especially during times of financial crisis, companies who can proactively use omnichannel methods to prompt customers observe a reduction in missed payments. In addition, low-touch digital outbound can redirect those customers to simply utilize cross-channel self-service, or for more complicated issues, they provide direct connection ability to collections call centers. Connecting directly to a collections call center can provide specialized and customized support, or simply trigger actions that give companies a better understanding of customer needs and financial position. Armed with this information, companies can adjust and customize their call center KPIs. Proactively, some businesses may offer to adjust or revamp payment schedules for qualified customers. This strategy can not only improve forecasting but can help prevent delinquent accounts as well.
Having a consistent end-to-end omnichannel strategy to communicate with clients, from predelinquency stages to recovery, will prove critically essential for companies such as BAC Credomatic and yours as we continue to navigate collections in 2020 and beyond.
Having a consistent end-to-end omnichannel strategy to communicate with clients, from predelinquency stages to recovery, will prove critically essential for companies such as BAC Credomatic and yours as we continue to navigate collections in 2020 and beyond.
Cameron Thomson, Senior Vice President, International, Aspect
