Going Green Benefits Debt Collection Companies
It seems as though companies all over are “going green” these days and collection agencies have jumped on the bandwagon. Companies such as Pacific Northwest Collections have chosen to dispose of paper files and use a program called Document Locater instead. The new system is beneficial in many ways.
Collection agents now can utilize the document locater to obtain files containing debtor information and are able to use this data to answer their queries over the phone in real time. This is helpful for the company because it is more efficient. Before the shift, payers oftentimes needed to wait on the phone for information, or even for a call back from the collections 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.
Financially the new system has turned out to be profitable. With the new green system, hours of work are eliminated. No more typing, filing, or copying is required, leaving agents with more time to contact debtors rather than do clerical work.
The new system also makes the company seem more professional. It may give the impression that a collection agency is uninformed when they cannot access information in a timely fashion. After all, the more creditable an agency appears, the more likely payers are to take the company seriously. Although at first shifting the information to software and purchasing the software itself may be costly, the whole procedure seems to pay for itself. A manager at Pacific Northwest Collections claims that the company saves $2,000 with the new system.
In a recession, collection agencies are struggling with retrieving money from debtors. Companies who are creative and have the ability to think outside of the box may very well turn out to be the most successful.
Mallory McGuinness-Hickey works for debt collection agency Rapid Recovery Solution and writes free lance articles on financial news and other subjects.
