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July 23, 2010
Debt Collection Call Center Drives Success with Virtual Observer
By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor
The debt collection industry experienced a major boost when the recession took a firm hold and despite the tough interactions call center agents must have with customers, there is still a priority in delivering customer service and keeping in line with industry regulations and liability requirements. With the right tools in place in the call center, these organizations can not only improve the service they deliver, but also the amount of outstanding debt they are able to collect.
SRA Associates has built a strong reputation through dependable results in the debt collection industry. The company’s professionally trained collection staff is made up of a team of experienced managers armed with the latest technology necessary to assist in quality and training efforts. One tool that helps to drive success is Virtual Observer, a call recording technology.
The mission defined for SRA Associates is to constantly exceed client expectations while also outperforming the competition. Success is completely dependent upon performance and it was clear that adding a call monitoring solution like Virtual Observer would help the organization to differentiate their level of customer service. The area of account receivables management is extremely competitive and labor intensive and to be successful, the organization must be able to maintain low turnover and a continuous flow of highly skilled and trained individuals who are motivated to deliver results on a consistent basis. Virtual Observer helps to reduce agent churn as it automates performance evaluation, scoring and training methodologies to dramatically improve performance in a short amount of time.
SRA began as a very manual environment, but in the last five years has tripled its staff and developed its technology with phone upgrades, a full time dialer and virtual dialers. "In addition we are now recording our calls using Virtual Observer, which is an important piece to our puzzle. We'd like to handle all incoming calls efficiently and effectively," offered John Chiara, president of SRA Associates. "In addition, we want to make as many outgoing calls as possible to generate right party contacts and return phone calls, which, ultimately leads to our revenue stream.”
With a wide range of customer service calls, SRA Associates must be able to deliver quality service to each and every customer. Responsiveness is also important, so the company evaluates a portion of its calls each day to make sure agents are handling customers with the care expected. And, managers can view screen activity to be sure applications are being used properly.
Chiara continued, “At some point we would also like to work towards getting a better system for skills based routing. We're currently using technology such as an auto-dialer, call accounting and a small-scaled IVR in the contact center. We believe that our call center is comparable to others, but we are always looking to improve."
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Juliana Kenny
