Everyone seems to be \”going green\” right now and collection companies are now following suit. Agencies such as Pacific Northwest Collections are now eliminating paper files and instead are using a piece of software called Document Locater. The shift from paper to paperless has benefited the company in many ways.
Collection agents are now able to use the document locater in order to access files for information. They can use this data to answer payer questions over the phone in real time. This benefits the company because it is more efficient. Before, payers often had to wait on the phone for information for quite a while, or they may even have to wait for a call back from the company.
Being able to quickly access information is a useful and effective way to collect, because contacting debtors may prove to be difficult. If an agent does get a payer on the phone, it can prove to be frustrating to wait on questions and often times a debtor may not be able to answer a call back from a collections company.
The new system has turned out to be profitable financially as well. With the new paperless system, hours of work are obliterated. No more typing, filing, or copying is neccessary, leaving collectors with more time to get in contact with debtors rather than do clerical work.
The new system also lends to professionalism of the company. It may seem like a collection agency is uninformed when they cannot access information immediately. The more creditable an agency seems, the more likely those in debt are to take the company seriously. Although shifting the information to software and purchasing the software itself may be costly at first, the whole procedure seems to pay for itself. A manager at Pacific Northwest Collections asserts that the company saves $2,000 with the new system.
In a bad economy, collection agencies may struggle with retrieving money from those in debt. Companies who are creative and can think outside of the box may very well turn out to be the most successful.
Mallory McGuinness-Hickey is employed by collection agency Rapid Recovery Solution and writes free lance pieces on financial news and other subjects. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service
