Didn't You Call Me About a Credit Card Debt Yesterday?

Robert Fite

It happens quite a bit in collections operations; redundant collections efforts by the same agents working for the same collection entity, engaged in frequent overlapping calls and conversations with the same debtor, regarding the same debt and or other debt obligations, during the same day or week. This is especially true for collection entities with multiple call centers, different collections platforms, and disparate databases. As such, it is no wonder why FTC consumer collections complaints are at an all time high. At the root of this ARM Industry situation is data management, and the lack of procedural safeguards.

Case in point, a collector in a cell center in Denver calls Jane Doe about a charged-off credit card account. The contact is right, but she pushes back, citing an inability to pay. The consumer and the collector agree to talk again next week. The very next day, a collector in Atlanta from the exact same company calls the exact same Jane Doe, only this time it’s about a defaulted student loan. Confused, Jane Doe asks, “Didn’t you call me about a credit card debt yesterday?”

As you can imagine, having an enterprise-wide view on each collection account gives an individual collector more insight into not only the multiple debt obligations currently and or previously in collections, but also recent call activity and results, across business units, platforms, and agents. In addition, collectors gain key insight regarding contact data being leveraged and updated, and associated accuracy, be it from internal or external sources (RPC, Disconnect: temp/permanent, Relative/ Associate, and Other phone / debtor statuses: cell /land line indicator, Bankruptcy flag, possible litigious debtor, employment status, and “in debt settlement”). But few debt collection operations have this sort of comprehensive view because they do not employ an approach that involves enterprise-wide data management, updating, and cross-functional sharing.

In the Jane Doe example, wouldn’t it have been great if the second collector knew that someone else in the company was working a different debt for the consumer? Or vice versa? If you know one consumer has more than one active account, you would certainly adjust your collection strategy.

This idea colors the concept of comprehensive Customer Intelligence, a philosophy that calls for a deep understanding of all data on a consumer across a vast, multi-database collection enterprise. By linking an individual person to any accounts that might appear in an enterprise, collection organizations will have the most in-depth knowledge of each consumer. In other words, you will truly know your debtor.

We have seen that many medium- to large-size collection operations do not take advantage of all of the data available. By pinning each unique consumer across vast data sets, an individual collector will know if that debtor appears in other collection queues. This isn’t easy. The amount of data in a typical medium to large-sized collection enterprise is enormous.

It is important to note that many firms attempt to leverage debtors’ Social Security numbers as the enterprise wide persistent debtor pin or link. However, this approach is fraught with challenges given the frequent issues associated with fragmented, incomplete, transposed, truncated, and/or missing SSN’s. Not to mention the security and privacy issues associated with attempting to leverage SSN’s.

There are few organizations that can handle this kind of ongoing computing, processing, and pinning endeavor. Especially, when you factor in data standardization, data hygiene, data augmentation, data linking, data appends, and analytics; you’re potentially looking at “Big Data” applications. Luckily, hosted and third party data processing and data management solutions are available to help.

The payoffs for leveraging improved data processing and data management solutions that enable enterprise wide collection account views and insight are immense. Not only in terms of driving more collections efficiency and effectiveness, but also in terms expense savings and mitigating business risk exposure.

Rob Fite is the Vice President of Collection Solutions for LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, and brings with him nearly 20 years of experience in the fields of collections, credit, and risk management. At LexisNexis, Rob is responsible for leading LexisNexis collections market strategies, product development, business direction and revenue growth.

This article originally appeared in the latest issue of Know Your Debtor, a free quarterly newsletter focused on the U.S. consumer environment. Make sure you’re registered to receive insideARM’s newsletters on your User Profile page.

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