The RCS Group, a provider of retail credit products for 550 000 customers through partnerships with 13 000 merchants in various industries, has improved its collection contact rates by 30% on the personal loans portfolio, with the implementation of a Presence dialler solution from Spescom DataFusion.
The solution, implemented almost 24 months ago, has not only improved customer service, but driven down risk and improved collection rates.
Explains Craig Nel, Collections Manager at the RCS Group: "The RCS loans division runs a large call centre with approximately 69 agents who process collection activities on past due accounts. However, with an aggressive growth strategy and the diversification of our offering from retail credit cards to personal loans, private label cards and home loans, we were faced with a number of challenges that threatened our risk profile.
"Our target market is broad (LSM4-8) and fits in the niche between micro lenders and traditional banks. The ability to manage these accounts well and, in particular, collect effectively on accounts in arrears, is thus of paramount importance to the company.
A manual collections process was in place. Explains Nel: "When customers defaulted, a manual process was used to contact and follow up on payments.
This was a difficult, laborious procedure that was exacerbated by the fact that agents had to interface with two non-integrated systems to access the information they needed - ie, a PIC Collections System (PCS), a dedicated specialised collections software solution; and Vision, credit card processing software that manages all aspects of the credit card from application to evaluation and payment processing.
"As the business grew, it quickly became evident that we needed a more efficient, automated solution that would improve our collections performance."
RCS considered a number of solutions but were impressed with product features and functionality of Presence Technologies' Outbound Dialler, a best-of-breed solution in the collections outbound space proposed by Spescom DataFusion, a specialist provider of contact centre and enterprise telephony solutions with whom RCS has built a trusted relationship.
The Presence outbound dialler selected by RCS leverages an organisation's existing infrastructure to gather data for outbound calling. It ensures only live contacts are delivered to the agents by using technology that allows for busy tones, no answers, pagers, answering machines and faxes to be detected and dealt with based on re-dialling rules.
Key features include: an option to use predictive, progressive, preview and power dialling modes; flexible list management with the ability to add, remove and amend leads while a campaign is active; scheduled call-back capability, either to a single agent or group of agents; call blending of inbound and outbound calls to the same agent group; complete administration of the solution by the business user, allowing real-time adaptation to changing trends and requirements in a campaign; and a full range of monitoring and reporting tools.
Explains Paul Fick, MD of Spescom DataFusion: "The Presence Dialler offers tight integration to the Avaya platform used by the call centre, as well as the Spescom DataVoice recorders that are deployed. It is a software-based 'bolt-on' solution, requiring no additional or dedicated hardware platform.
“This allows the group to harness its investment in its existing infrastructure, complementing and enhancing its present functionality."
Spescom DataFusion conducted a business analysis that assessed the ROI from the existing manual environment, including collection rates and 'promise to pay' rates. Just based on the increase in contacts that the Presence Dialler would enable, a strong ROI case was built for Presence in terms of bringing more outstanding monies in.
For the implementation of the solution, which took place between April and October 2008, the company engaged staff and management at all levels. The physical implementation took only a short period.
Explains Nel: "We took a phased approach. For phase one our goal was to get the system operational and run with a manual load - i.e., a database of people to contact for collections. Phase two, which was completed at the end of 2008, saw further integration of the Presence Dialler with our two backend systems and the automation of 'loads' based on selection parameters.
The outcome? On the first day of use, the Presence Dialler delivered a 120% improvement in terms of collection contact rates. In the following year, with ongoing refinement of the dialling algorithms, the daily contact rates rose from 90 calls per agent per day (up from approximately 40 per day prior to implementation of the dialler) to 130, a further 30% improvement.
RCS makes use of preview and progressive dialling functionality. Preview mode puts the client contact details in front of the agent and enables click-to-dial functionality. This improves productivity compared to manual dialling but is primarily used by the collections tracing team to find hard-to-contact customers. The progressive dialling mode sees the Presence dialler do all the dialling, only presenting the agent with a live contact.
A 'screen pop' containing relevant client information simultaneously appears on the PC screen in front of the agent.
RCS is also making use of progressive scripting. As an agent works her way through a collection call process, she will tick various boxes or fill in specific information onscreen. When she reaches a certain point, say the completion of a field that states when the client will make a payment, the system is prompted to dial the next customer. This ensures agents' time is more productively used and they are not left idle while waiting for the next live call.
Says Nel: "The growth opportunity for the company remains huge and we are, in fact, still growing the business significantly. However, the rate of bad debt growth is now being suitably contained. In addition to the improvement in collections contacts, we now touch base with 98% of our clients every month, improving the quality of our customer service and enhancing customer relations."
However, Nel believes these benefits are just the tip of the iceberg. "We are really only using very basic Presence dialler functionality. Our challenge going forward is to further enhance our collections rates, as well as improve the quality of our client portfolio. There remains a huge opportunity to, by leveraging the more sophisticated functionality of the Presence suite, run more targeted customer relationship management campaigns to more effectively use our resources, and in so doing, enhance efficiencies, customer service and, ultimately, sales."
Spescom DataFusion takes a "cradle to grave" approach with an annual SLA to manage RCS' Avaya infrastructure, Spescom DataVoice recorders and the Presence dialler solution.
Says Nel: "Spescom DataFusion has provided excellent service, especially after-sales service. Their expertise and willingness to assist, supply additional training and ensure the solution is properly managed has led to the development of a strong partnership."
Concludes Fick: "RCS is an innovative and dynamic organisation. As it continues to grow its customer base and offerings, the rich functionality of the Presence suite will stand it in good stead. We believe RCS has laid a strong foundation for ongoing performance enhancement by implementing this solution."
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