Artificial Intelligence Tools for Creating a Smarter Collection Model

Ranjan Dharmaraja

Quantrax founder Ranjan Dharmaraja was recently interviewed by ARM industry consultant Phillip Duff, President of Lighthouse Consulting, Inc. and discussed what makes his company’s collection software, Receivables Management Expert, stand out from the crowd. Read the entire interview below:

Q: Ranjan, your company uses the words “smart and intelligent” to describe your system. Why? Can you give me an example?

Ranjan: We built technology to clone a human collection expert. An intelligent system will allow you to change the behavior, operation and decision-making of the system without any custom programming. As an example, you can teach the system when to give up on an account or send a letter in Spanish without the collector doing anything different.

Q: Is this technology unique to Quantrax?

Ranjan: Other vendors have added different types of rules to make their systems more powerful, but that does not compare with a system built ground up on the principles of artificial intelligence. There is no other “intelligent collection system” that we are aware of.

Q: What is the difference in results with your system compared to a traditional collection platform?

Ranjan: Collections is a numbers game. You win if you play the numbers well. You need to look at hundreds of parameters to make a good decision on just one account. When you have technology that can enforce complex rules, look at millions of accounts every day, minimize over-working and under-working – you see enormous gains in productivity.

Q: Give us an example of a complex rule.

Ranjan: A state says you cannot try a work number until you have tried the home number and waited two days. Enforcing that is not easy. You have to also stop a hyperactive agent from picking up a desk phone and calling the work number on day one. We do it.

Q: What does it cost?

Ranjan: This is an industry that only gets paid when they collect. They may collect less than 10%. Effort on the other 90% generates no revenue. What do 100 people cost? Over $3.5 million a year. If you can save just 10% with technology, doing more work with the same people, you save $350k a year. The technology costs less than that.

Q: What about your clients? Have they used the technology as you expected them to?

Ranjan: That is a great question. It usually takes time for humans to trust a machine to make decisions they are paid to make. There is also this thing called job security. But everyone overcomes this and once they see what this technology can do, the sky is literally the limit.

Q: Some will say this is hype. Does it really work?

Ranjan: We’ve been doing this for 25 years. We have clients who have tripled their volumes with relatively small increases in headcount. The system will manage most of your compliance requirements that humans traditionally make mistakes with. With little advertising, we have had clients in over 35 states and in Canada. Our clients have above average income to collector ratios. And you don’t need an IT department. I would say it works!

Q: What is the smartest thing your system does?

Ranjan: It will present the right account to the right agent with the right phone number, at the right time!

Ranjan Dharmaraja is the founder of Quantrax Corporation and has 25 years of experience in the collection industry. Quantrax has developed the first collection software program powered by artificial intelligence. To learn more about the Receivables Management Expert from Quantrax, visit their website at www.Quantrax.com.