Services that engage in debt collection are changing to support an ever-growing amount of new debt, more educated consumers, law changes, and new technologies. With all of these changes, the demand for a positive customer experience has risen… so what exactly can agencies do to realize this experience?
The essence of debt collection industries is that of consumer interaction. The industry itself is very touchy in that there is consistent communication between the consumers and agents. As technology in banking continues to gravitate towards a mobile-dominated sector, the level of face-to-face interactions for debt collectors is declining. Pair this with the pandemic, and it’s no surprise that mobile banking and mobile finance seems to be the preferred way to navigate assets and liabilities.
The collections industry should be focused less on the ways of the past and more on their industry’s primary goal – solving the customer.
A Mobile Customer Journey:
Customers prefer to use their phones for a variety of services. Why? Because it’s convenient for them, it’s much easier to turn on their phone, pull up your website, and utilize the benefit from a position of comfort or relative inconvenience when it comes to accessing a desktop/laptop (think on public transit or while walking down the street).
The first step to implementing effective debt collection strategies begins with understanding your customer’s journey on each level throughout their collection process. For example, does the consumer prefer to use mobile, web, maybe they prefer face-to-face via video chat? Having a system that logs these data points for consumer preference allows the backed omnichannel support system to operate more efficiently.
How Omnichannel Interactions lead to Efficiency:
Through the use of an omnichannel structure, we can create a more efficient debt collection process. Before the customer even asks for support or gets into a collection call, the omnichannel structure has already logged the customer preferences based on their browsing habits. As a result, the omnichannel system has already made predictions on how best to serve this customer and is even prepared to switch things up if the predictions were wrong.
Whether the client is operating for consumer debt collections or small-business collections, the omnichannel system is prepared to separate and classify client needs. At the end of the day, implementing omnichannel technology into the collection industry increases debt collections’ Efficiency and better understand consumer engagement.
Engagement Tips and Conclusion:
Suppose we can leave you with one thing before you go today. In that case, it’s to understand that just because an omnichannel system exists to communicate doesn’t mean that you should spam your consumers with communicative touchpoints.
To communicate appropriately, focus your omnichannel structure on being a system that offers consumers more choice than they had previously under a multi-channel/single-channel system. No matter the case, more choice gives the consumers the ability to make their debt collection process more efficient and hands-on.
A comfortable consumer, especially in the debt collection world, is a much easier customer to work with and navigate towards a solution.
Conclusion: The customer experience has become a priority for some agencies, but what can they do to deliver on this demand? Click here to find out how you can make the most of your debt collection services and ensure that customers are happy.
