How Debt Collections Software Benefits Telecommunications Companies

Telecoms face a tough uphill battle. Mergers are sweeping the industry, tougher regulatory pressures are slashing profits, and lingering effects of the credit crunch aren’t just affecting banks.

While telecoms struggle to find new markets, acquire more customers and cut costs, they may miss one avenue by which they can capture more revenue from business already on the books: collections and recovery operations. 

That is where collections and recovery software comes in. A specialized collections solution doesn’t just deliver recovery functionality as part of a larger software package; it is built from the ground up to better manage payment cycles. The difference is that while a general solution may marginally improve collections processes, specialized software completely transforms recovery efforts.

Telecoms should take note. Collections software provides greater insight into customer payment obligations, risk portfolios, and current delinquencies. The result is a greater recovery of payments outstanding, money saved through increased operational efficiencies, and proactive risk assessment that prevents delinquencies in the first place.

For telecoms that wish to increase revenue, this post outlines three major ways a dedicated collections and recovery software solution can help. 

1. Better Manage Collections Workflows

Mergers, acquisitions, and telecom growth present serious opportunities. But they also create serious headaches as departments, accounts, and finances merge, dissolve or reorganize.

A robust collections software solution delivers workflow management functionality that keeps documents, accounts information, and payment cycle data in a single location that is easy to use and maintain. 

Collections software serves both corporate and retail customers by providing telecoms with user-friendly features like:

• The ability to define and fine-tune credit policies.
• Logic to support better account origination and assignments.
• Document management workflows to track assignments as they progress through the payment lifecycle.
• Analytics to report on process productivity and risk portfolios. 

As telecoms cut prices to compete, it is critical they streamline and optimize workflows to save money and improve efficiencies. 

2. Improve Risk Scoring and Analysis

Whether you acquire a new customer portfolio or existing customers from a merger, risk affects bottom-line health, projected earnings, and opportunities for future growth.

Collections software provides rigorous risk analysis tools that are based on behavioral or application scoring models. Telecoms with risk scoring can:

• Better analyze risk during the payment origination process—before those risks are added to their books.
• Create, test, and track scorecards for better risk management throughout an account’s lifecycle.
• Produce a variety of reports—such as stability reports or correlation analyses—to comprehensively view risk across different payment cycle phases.

Risk is inescapable. But it is highly manageable with the right tools. As organizations increase in complexity and face tougher competition, effective risk scoring presents an advantage that can’t be ignored. 

3. Increase Recovery of Delinquencies and Back Payments

Delinquencies are a fact of life for any company that collects payments. But just because an account becomes delinquent doesn’t mean that is the end of the story—or of the customer relationship. 

According to Entrepreneur Magazine, the average customer acquisition cost for Sprint PCS, a U.S. telecom giant, is $315 per customer. With costs that high, telecoms must work to preserve customer relationships while maximizing the revenue captured from recovery efforts.

They can leverage collections software to do that and increase operational efficiencies by using it to:

• Determine past payment behavior based on historical data—and use it to formulate effective recovery strategies across the communication channels customers prefer.
• More efficiently manage the delinquency process by regulating the cases agents and agent groups receive, acceptable payment plan negotiations, and how accounts are prioritized.
• Speed up the recovery cycle by segmenting portfolios based on risk, so that collectors use their time and resources as efficiently as possible.
• Control how and when collections cases are assigned to third-party vendors, and assess their performance.

Is it time your organization considered a specialized collection and recovery software solution? Find out more information here.

It tests the efficiency of collection strategies 

Effective debt collection requires patience and diligence. The best debt collectors are considered at the top of the game because they have honed their skills over the years. Meanwhile, those who are new to the field are yet to develop their own strategy. And that is something that collection software solutions can help with. That is because it can simulate the effectiveness of a technique before they are deployed. 

Financial suites or debt collection platforms have simulation models that authorized personnel can utilize even without the assistance of IT. There are also tools available that allow them to tweak their strategy design so that they can come up with a system that works best for them and yields the highest success rate. You can also check out a compilation of budgeting software solutions to streamline your financial and accounting tasks.