Where Proficiency Meets Efficiency: Credit Bureau Disputes Case Management Systems

Dispute volumes continue to exhaust dispute processing operations. Even highly proficient teams can be more efficient with a Disputes Case Management System (DCMS). Read on for the top four advantages of migrating to a DCMS.

Picture this…the next five disputes in queue are a mix of indirect and direct, which means two different applications. The disputes are for five different products, which means five different systems of record. Summary notes are captured in a different application, and customer correspondence sent from yet another application.

Confused yet?

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Welcome to the daily routine of a typical dispute specialist.

Because of the rinse and repeat nature of many disputes, your specialists may be highly proficient in navigating the tangled web of their day-to-day duties. But are they truly efficient?

Disputes Case Management Systems Smooth the Process and Build Efficiency

A robust disputes case management system helps untangle the growing web of inefficiency navigated daily by dispute specialists.

Let’s face it, dispute volumes are through the roof. Large furnishers are handling volumes in the tens of thousands every month (many of which are duplicates). Volumes for smaller furnishers are relatively significant as well.

Because of high dispute volumes and multiple disparate systems to navigate, your typical dispute specialist is a highly proficient worker who skillfully navigates green-screens and web-based applications alike.

Some refer to this constant multi-system navigation as the “swivel-chair effect.” Imagine if you could perform all the following dispute-related activities in one central location:

• Organize disputes into manageable queues
• Review direct and indirect disputes
• Consolidate duplicates
• View and analyze all relevant information from multiple systems of record
• Retain evidence of completing your “reasonable investigation”
• Summarize all activities taken
• Send correspondence to the customer
• Submit an AUD or ACDV

This all sounds appealing, but the real question is: how much more efficient could your specialists be with such a tool? It is impossible to definitively quantify but combining your specialist’s proficiency with DCMS efficiency is likely a tailor-made formula for success.

A DCMS Simplifies, Prioritizes, Eliminates Errors…and is Regulator Ready

Now for some of the specifics related to key pain points that a disputes case management system can eliminate.

Duplicates – Triplicates – Quadruplicates…

Ever get frustrated that your specialists must reply to the same verbatim dispute from the same customer multiple times in a month? Ideally, you would consolidate these disputes so that two, three or four responses turn into one. Consolidation significantly cuts down redundant, excess and unnecessary work. A DCMS can do just that.

Disputes are generally not responded to immediately upon receipt. So, a DCMS uses the time when disputes are waiting in queue to detect similar or duplicate disputes. Then, the DCMS consolidates them all into one case. When your dispute specialist works that case, they issue one response and close all related dispute cases at once.

Evidence – A Regulator’s Best Friend

If you have ever participated in a regulatory exam, you know how critical it is to be able to provide tangible evidence to the regulatory body. From a disputes perspective, you must provide copies of received disputes and system notes; and you need to show what the system of record looked like when the dispute was received. This applies to disputes where furnishing was accurate and inaccurate.

Generally, when regulators arrive to perform a historical lookback, they are looking for tangible evidence. The evidence validates what data was in a system at the time of a dispute compared against what was changed (if anything). A DCMS captures and retains this information, thereby making a regulatory data request a significantly simplified exercise to fulfill.

Queue Management – Prioritizing the Workday

While all disputes have the same response SLA, all disputes are certainly not created equal. Some disputes have higher sensitivity (e.g., ID theft). Some may take a bit longer to investigate (e.g., Mortgage COVID forbearances or purged accounts). And some may be “light touch” requiring a simple investigation (e.g., goodwill requests).

The ability to strategically prioritize and assign disputes, using many different attributes, will allow for efficiency gains. A DCMS can ingest all available data and dissect it based on your criteria (e.g., dispute code, product, system of record, dispute type). Logic rules can then be applied to create prioritized dispute queues so critical cases and those known to take longer are fast-tracked to specifically trained specialists.

Eliminate “Fat Finger” Errors

The speed at which dispute specialists constantly copy information from one place to another ultimately results in data entry errors. Many times, because they are working so quickly, mistakes go unnoticed, which ultimately results in updating a tradeline with more inaccurate information.

Imagine if all required information was populated with the click of a button and simply required a review for accuracy. This ability not only reduces time to complete a dispute but eliminates unnecessary data entry errors. A DCMS can load, copy, or transfer relevant data with the click of a button, eliminating the need for monotonous manual keying of data.

As you can see, a DCMS solves many of the challenges that disputes organizations encounter daily; but you must be willing to make the investment and configure the DCMS to work for your organization.

A DCMS will only be as effective as you are willing to make it. Remember that an under used or poorly configured DCMS can still drive inefficiencies in a dispute organization. Capitalize on your specialist’s proficiency today and deploy a DCMS into your organization, and truly become a model of efficiency in credit bureau dispute processing.