industry: Collections and Payments

Skit.ai’s Augmented Voice Intelligence Platform takes a giant leap with Generative AI

Posted on by Harshad Bajpai

Skit.ai‘s Augmented Voice AI Platform is now powered by Generative AI. With the incorporation of Generative AI, we are taking a giant step forward in capabilities of our Conversational Voice AI solution. The conversations are about to become more natural, and the capability to handle complex conversations significantly better leading to better CX and more collection for collection agencies.

At Skit.ai, we embrace the future and prepare to go beyond it.

The Giant Leap in Capabilities of Skit.ai’s Augmented Voice Intelligence Platform with Generative AI

With the application of LLMs, we are seeing a big jump in the conversational capabilities of our solution:

  • Higher Conversational Accuracy: Significantly high conversational accuracy as LMMs are capable of understating conversational complexities with a profoundly superior understanding of context, sentence parsing, and response accuracy.
  • Better Handling Complex Conversations: Superior understanding of complex conversations that were earlier escalated to human agents. This would cut down the percentage of calls passed over to live agents drastically.
  • Out-of-scope Calls: As LLM powered voice AI solutions can handle a wide array of questions and issues, its ability to handle out-of-scope calls is thus much more.
  • Better and more natural bot utterances.
  • Faster Voicebot Creation: Incorporating Generative AI give a big boost to the speed at which new voicebots can be created as the inherent complexity and effort involved in design, and creation is a fraction of earlier effort.

Massive Performance Gains with Generative AI Springboard

Not resting with massive gains we are achieving with basic LLMs, we intent to take it a notch further up and outperform human collectors.

1. Going Beyond Human Agent Performance

An agents performance rests on two things: ability to communicate and technical skills. At Skit.ai, we see that with current LLMs, we can achieve superlative communication skills, and by training extensively with end-user data, we can achieve high degree of technical skills. Hence our solution can excel on both the fronts.

To share a rough estimate: the best performing agent finds success on 5% call (out of connected calls), while low performers convert ~2% of calls.

With generative AI, we take a big jump. From the current voicebot conversion capability of around 1-2%, we expect the performance to jump 3-4 folds. Beyond this, our Reinforcement Learning platform learns from outcomes to personalize the conversation to figure out the ideal strategies, learning from thousands of daily conversations.

2. Better, and More Natural Spoken Conversations

Generative AI with its unparalleled conversational capabilities needs to be complemented with equally capable speech synthesis and understanding systems that produces the right speech given the output from LLMs. And that is one of the major areas from the many below:

  • A more natural-sounding TTS voice
  • Conversational context handling prosody of generated audio
  • Full duplex and backchannels in speech conversations

Ultimately, we will be able to deliver the most engaging conversations that delight consumers by solving their problems better than human agents.

Business Outcomes of Incorporating Generative AI

Below are the major impact areas we will more the needle on:

  1. Higher Collection Rate, ~5%: It is a difficult number to quantify, but as the incorporation of Generative AI matures, we expect its collection capability to move beyond 5%, surpassing even the best of human agents.
  2. Lower Agent Dependency, reduction by 50-80%: As the voicebot will be able to handle more complex queries we expect 50-80% reduction in agent touch points.
  3. Higher Resolution Rate, ~100%: Better accuracy and better conversation with higher engagement will help us achieve a conversational resolution rate of close to 100%.
  4. Creating New Voicebots: The effort involved in creating a new voicebot will see a significant dip, as the complexity will be remarkably lower.
  5. Entering New Markets with Ease, 15X faster: Entering into new markets, training for new use cases and applications needing less effort and resources. We are estimating the process to be 15X faster.

The Way Ahead

Though the improvements in our Augmented Voice Intelligent Platform are visible and clear, we will further our efforts to achieve greater performance gains and stay ahead of the curve.

To learn more about how Voice AI can help support your human resources and scale their collection efforts with call automation, schedule a call with one of our experts or use the chat tool below.

An Unbiased Look into the Positive Side of Voice AI

Posted on by Harshad Bajpai

Artificial intelligence is experiencing exponential innovation. Generative AI, ChatGPT, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, and other AI models have captured popular attention, but they have also raised serious questions about the issue of ethics in machine learning (ML).

AI can make several micro-decisions that impact such real-world macro-decisions as authorization for a bank loan or be accepted as a potential rental applicant. Because the consequences of AI can be far-reaching, its implementers must ensure that it works responsibly. While algorithmic models do not think like humans, humans can easily and even unintentionally introduce preferences (biases) into AI during development and updates.

Ethics and Bias in Voice AI

Voice AI shares the same core ethical concerns as AI in general, but because voice closely mimics human speech and experience, there is a higher potential for manipulation and misrepresentation. Also, people tend to trust things with a voice, including friendly interfaces like Alexa and Siri. 

Call automation for call centers and businesses is not a new concept. Unlike computerized auto dealers (pre-recorded voice messages) like Robocall, Skit.ai’s Voice AI solution is capable of intelligent conversations with a real consumer in real-time. In other words, Voice AIs are your company representatives. And just like your human representatives, you want to ensure your AI is trained in and acts in line with company values and displays a professional code of conduct. 

Human agents and AI systems at any given point should not treat consumers differently for reasons unrelated to their service. But depending on the dataset, the system might not provide a consistent experience. For example, more males calling a call center might result in a gender classifier biased against female speakers. And what happens when biases, including those against regional speech and slang, sneak into voice AI interactions? 

In contrast to human agents, who might sometimes unintentionally display biases, Voice AI follows a predetermined, inclusive script while strictly adhering to guidelines that prioritize consumer satisfaction and compliance. This level of professionalism eliminates the potential for misbehavior and creates a positive consumer experience. 

Our team is always potentially looking out for any potential bias that accidentally seeps in, as ‘biases’ as constantly evolving. One thing can be acceptable today, but may bee seen as a bias tomorrow. At Skit.ai our skilled team of dedicated designers meticulously construct the dialogue patterns to guarantee balanced responses. Following these predefined scripts allows our Voice AI solution to offer consistent, unbiased interactions, thus establishing an inclusive user experience. This emphasis on conversation design aids us in overcoming potential biases that may surface in human interactions, thus securing a more balanced and impartial user experience.

Consumer Convenience and the Growing Preference for Voice AI

Consumers increasingly prefer interacting with Voice AI rather than human agents due to the convenience it offers. Voice AI allows users to communicate naturally through voice commands, eliminating the need to type or navigate complex menus. This convenience aligns with the preferences of many individuals who find it easier and more natural to speak rather than type. Furthermore, Voice AI is available 24/7, providing round-the-clock support without the need to wait for human agents. 

This instant access to information and assistance enhances consumer satisfaction and can lead to faster issue resolution. Additionally, voice interactions can be personalized and tailored to individual preferences, creating a more personalized and engaging consumer experience. The convenience and preference for voice-based interactions make Voice AI a valuable tool for meeting consumer expectations.

Building Ethical Voice AI 

Empathetic conversational design eliminates bias. At Skit.ai, we’re dedicated to developing leading-edge Voice AI technology. Our mission is to facilitate communication that is equitable and devoid of bias. Through conversational design, biases are eliminated, ensuring fair and inclusive interactions. A significant part of our strategy involves refining the conversational capabilities of our systems, striving for a natural, seamless exchange of speech that ensures equal treatment for all and eradicates discriminatory tendencies. As we navigate the future of work, Voice AI stands as a valuable tool, empowering enhanced communication, fostering seamless consumer conversations, and further elevating customer satisfaction.

To learn more about how Voice AI can help support your human resources and scale their collection efforts with call automation, schedule a call with one of our experts or use the chat tool below.

Are You Still Using an IVR Menu for Debt Collections?

Posted on by Simone Somekh

What is an IVR System for Debt Collections?

IVR stands for “Interactive Voice Response,” and it’s a legacy technology that enables companies to automate both inbound and outbound calls by using a pre-recorded voice that interacts with consumers and guides them through a pre-set menu, which can be navigated by inputting DTMF (dual-tone multi-frequency) from the phone keyboard.

Virtually everyone has interacted with an IVR system at some point. Whether you’ve called a business, a bank, a pharmacy, a doctor’s office, or a phone service provider, you are certainly familiar with prompts like: “For hours of operations, press 1.”

Call automation for call centers and businesses is not a new concept. IVR became popular in the 1980s when it emerged as an essential customer service technology. Debt collection agencies have been using IVR for over a decade, for both outbound calls (such as payment reminders) and inbound calls (such as consumer inquiries).

However, the fact that IVR is so common does not mean that it’s an optimal solution. In this blog post, we’ll go over the limitations of IVR and explain why adopting a conversational Voice AI solution is a far better option for collection agencies.

Why IVR Is Overwhelmingly Unpopular

IVR reduces wait time for consumers, but it does not eliminate it, as it forces users to listen to lengthy menus that are for the most part irrelevant. At least 61% of consumers think that IVR systems make for a poor customer experience (CX).

A survey conducted by Vonage with Opinion Matters in 2019 revealed that having to listen to seemingly endless, irrelevant menu options is the primary factor that contributes to the consumers’ negative experience. Additionally, the respondents complained that IVR menus are usually too long, that the reason for their call is sometimes not even listed, and the system prevents them from speaking directly to a live customer representative.

Building the right IVR for your company can be tricky. When the system is not designed well, users will get frustrated and abandon the call. IVR is notoriously difficult to navigate, especially when a business offers different services or targets various sets of consumers.

In one sentence: consumers don’t like IVR. So what’s the alternative?

Voice AI Is the Best Alternative to IVR

Conversational Voice AI is the cutting-edge technology behind what is commonly referred to as a “voicebot.” It enables companies to automate both inbound and outbound calls with customers without the involvement of a human being. In recent years, SaaS platforms offering Voice AI solutions have become more affordable and easier to deploy.

In the ARM industry, Voice AI can transform the operations of collection agencies for the better; these solutions are infinitely scalable and can handle the vast majority of calls with consumers. The AI can handle the most repetitive and mundane calls, empowering live agents to focus on the most important and revenue-generating calls.

Skit.ai’s solution can handle intelligent, personalized, and effective conversations with consumers, eliminating wait times and significantly cutting costs for the company adopting it. The AI is aware of the context and will tailor the service it offers based on the specific needs of the user. The technology not only understands what the user says but also the semantics of the conversation.

Voice AI for Outbound Collection Calls

Collectors are usually expected to go through thousands of files per month; a large number of those files remain untouched since it’s impossible for a human collector to contact and speak with so many consumers. This process leads to substantial losses in potential revenue for the agency.

When fed with large quantities of files, a Voice AI platform can initiate and handle an extraordinarily high number of calls. These are some of the solution’s capabilities:

The solution can easily transfer the more complex calls to a live agent when it cannot reach a satisfactory resolution. When agents see that a call is being transferred from the Voice AI, they know the customer is usually inclined to make a payment or reach a settlement.

Why You Should Not Use IVR for Outbound Collection Calls

Using IVR for debt collection calls is limiting and is unlikely to lead to a successful debt recovery on a consistent basis. The system can’t capture meaningful dispositions and is capable of handling a limited number of actions. Let’s say the consumer refuses to pay or disputes the debt—can your IVR capture the reason? Let’s say the consumer is willing to pay but can only pay off part of the debt at this time; can your IVR handle a negotiation? If the consumer is busy right now, is your IVR able to capture call-back dates and times? Probably not.

Voice AI for Inbound Queries

When a customer calls the collection agency, rather than having to deal with an annoying IVR menu, they get to interact with the Voice AI solution.

The AI picks up the call right away, eliminating the wait time of a regular call; additionally, the user does not have to patiently listen to a long list of options. The AI typically authenticates the caller’s identity and, if relevant, informs them of their due balance. Here the customer gets to have an intelligent, effective, multi-turn conversation with the Voice AI solution.

In revenue-generating inbound calls, the Voice AI can easily help the customer make a payment. In non-revenue-generating inbound calls, the solution will answer the customer’s questions based on the information it has on file, and will transfer the call to an agent when needed.

Why You Should Not Use IVR for Inbound Queries

Whenever a consumer is interested in making a payment and resolving their debt, they might be turned off by the poor customer experience offered by the IVR. In non-revenue generating inbound calls, the IVR system is often incapable of resolving the query, and therefore will likely transfer the call to a live agent.

U.S. debt collection agencies report that their agents spend about 20% of their time answering inbound calls! Many of these calls are not revenue-generating, so they consume time and resources that could be easily allocated to collection calls.

The Benefits of Adopting Voice AI for Debt Collection Agencies

Here are some of the benefits reported by collections agencies that have adopted Skit.ai’s Voice AI platform:

Interested in learning more about how Voice AI can help you streamline your collection strategy and reach your full potential? Schedule a call with one of our experts using the chat tool below!

Tips for an Agile, Digital-first Debt Collection Agency

Posted on by Simone Somekh

The State of the U.S. Debt Collections Industry in 2023 

Let’s start from the data. The U.S. debt collections industry is worth $20 billion in 2023, according to IBIS World research. Given that the industry was estimated to be worth only $11.5 billion in 2018, the growth has been remarkable—approximately 73.9% in just five years.

About half of the market share is dominated by the 50 largest ARM companies, over a total of almost 7,000 businesses.

As the industry continues to grow, it has become challenging for executives to keep up with the times. While recovery rates are a key factor influencing competitiveness, technological innovation is the other element defining a company’s success. Digital transformation is no longer a “plus” for agencies, but rather a “must,” and while many ARM companies have embraced change, there is still a long way to go.

In this article, we’ll discuss what it means for a debt collection agency to be agile and adopt a digital-first approach and we’ll go over a few examples of types of technology that agencies are adopting.

What Does It Mean for a Debt Collection Agency to Be Agile?

Business agility is defined as the ability to make changes and decisions quickly. Usually, companies become agile by prioritizing data-driven decision-making, efficiency, flexibility, and innovation. In other words, agility is the exact opposite of stagnation.

According to Entrepreneur, agile decision-making can be related to a variety of issues, such as responding to new competitors or market changes; solving problems as they emerge; launching new products and services; and minimizing time spent internally.

Why is it important to be agile? McKinsey has found that companies that undergo a successful agile transformation gain a 30% increase in operational performance, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

Digital transformation is a key process influencing agility.

“Some ARM companies have been slow to adopt new technologies and, as a consequence, they are now at a competitive and operational disadvantage,” explained Scott Carroll, industry veteran. “Some didn’t know they needed technology, or they didn’t know exactly where to look and where to start. But now the industry is quickly catching up.”

Carroll explained that tight regulations, concerns over compliance, and widespread litigation are some of the reasons why the industry has been lagging behind in innovation. “Businesses have been naturally more cautious. But now, as they get a better understanding of the regulations, they’re finally looking toward technology to improve their operational efficiency,” he said.

One strength the collections industry has is that it’s usually prepared to pivot: “Because of fast-changing regulations and client needs, the industry needs to be prepared to respond to change.”

How the Industry Is Catching Up by Becoming Digital-first and Tech-savvy

A growing interest in innovation is driving the push toward agility in the ARM industry. Staying updated on new technologies, monitoring emerging tech companies and solutions, and investigating how leading technologies like artificial intelligence can be applied to debt collection are the key tips to implement an agile transformation.

In January 2023, the industry held its first-ever conference entirely dedicated to technology. ARMTech, which took place in Nashville, was a four-day event aimed at helping executives understand the technology that is revolutionizing how debts are collected. The event was organized by Mike Gibb, industry leader and editor of the website AccountsRecovery.net.

The industry is moving toward a digital-first model, as it’s evident that consumers prefer to deal with companies offering omnichannel services and interact through digital channels. Omnichannel includes a wide range of channels, such as website, mobile app, social media, telephony, chatbot, voicebot, SMS, and email.

Telephony systems and dialing platforms are essential for any contact center, including a collection agency, whose business largely depends on outbound and inbound calling. These platforms include TCN, Twilio, Genesys, LiveVox, RingCentral, 8×8, Five9, and more.

Collection management software is the other most common type of software adopted by collection agencies. These systems of record enable agencies to manage their portfolios in one easy-to-use, centralized platform updated regularly by the agents.

Conversational Voice AI, the technology behind voicebots, is gaining ground as a widely popular technology in the ARM industry. Skit.ai has developed an AI-powered Digital Collection Agent, which handles human-like outbound calls to collect payments from consumers. The voicebot intelligently interacts with the consumer, handling payment reminders, negotiation, and processing. The Digital Collection Agent does not substitute the human agents but rather augments their work by handling the most repetitive and tedious tasks. This solution can be easily integrated with the other tools in use.

Voice AI should not be confused with IVR (interactive voice response) systems, a legacy technology that requires consumers to navigate lengthy menus through DTMF inputs or basic voice-enabled inputs.

Key players in the industry are also adopting business intelligence and analytics solutions that support agents during and after their calls with consumers. Prodigal’s solution offers real-time agent assistance, auto-writes call summaries, and analyzes collection calls on dozens of parameters to monitor and boost performance and compliance.

What’s Next?

It looks like 2023 will be a defining year for the collections industry in regard to digital transformation and agility.

“Agility is a key operating factor for success,” advised Scott Carroll. “My tip is to stay current on technology, investigate new tools, stay on top of the latest trends, and keep your eyes open for anything that helps you increase your margins and reduce your exposure. This will ultimately lead to increased collections.”

Entering a New Era of Debt Collections with Conversational Voice AI

Posted on by Harshad Bajpai

Debt collection companies have been automating various parts of their operations, much like companies in other industries. However, their core problem – the inability to automate intelligent spoken conversations – has impacted their ability to solve their core challenges. 

Connecting with consumers to recover payments is at the core of what a debt collection company does. Conversational Voice AI, with its capability to automate collection calls, solves all significant challenges and ushers in a new era of debt collections.

How is Voice AI changing debt collections forever?

  • 100% Account Penetration: Digital Collection Agents can dial millions of calls within a few days, covering an agency’s entire debt portfolio. This has never been possible until now, as over a third of the files an agency has remain untouched. 
  • Less Dependence on Human Agents: It is hard to find a skilled collector, and having a consistent team that can scale up when needed has been extremely challenging. But instant scalability with Digital Collection Agents, the dependence on human collectors goes down substantially. The end-to-end automation of many calls means that human agents are no longer required to do those calls. So a collector can manage a larger portfolio with a smaller or the same team of agents. 
  • Augmenting Agent Productivity: Since Digital Collection Agents can complete voluminous and low-value tasks, the outcomes help human agents optimize the accounts they focus on and the problems they want to solve. This was impossible, as human agents were busy identifying RPC and WPCs, dispute calls, and others. 
  • File Segmentation for Better Recovery: For the first time, collectors can now see the entire picture of their portfolio. They can see the set of Right Part Contacts (RPCs), the propensity to pay, and other vital data. This power of segmentation is helping them optimize their collection strategy and improve collections. 
  • Remarkably Lower Cost Structure: The Digital Collection Agents can dial over 80% cheaper calls while also being scalable. This has never been possible before.

Further Read: Top and Bottom Lines Impact of Skit.ai’s Solution for Debt Collection Agencies?

Voice AI comes with other remarkable benefits; here are a few: 

  • Lower Compliance and Legal Risk: In addition to its many benefits, Voice AI also has the potential to improve compliance and reduce the risk of legal issues. Debt collection can be complex and regulated, and collectors must follow strict compliance guidelines. With Voice AI, these guidelines can be built into the technology to ensure that digital collection agents always follow best practices. This can help to reduce the risk of legal issues and protect both the debt collection agency and the customer.
  • Better Decision-Making with Data Analytics: Voice AI also can analyze customer data and make informed decisions on the best course of action. For example, Voice AI can use data on a customer’s payment history, income, and expenses to determine the best payment plan for them. This data-driven approach can lead to more efficient and practical debt resolution outcomes and a better customer experience.
  • Unprecedented Automation: One of the main benefits of Voice AI in debt collections is that it automates much of the manual work involved in the process. Debt collectors can use Voice AI to automate tasks such as calling customers, sending reminders, and recording customer interactions. This saves time and allows collectors to focus on more complex tasks, such as negotiating payment plans and resolving disputes.

How to choose the best Conversational Voice AI solution provider?

The most important thing to remember about a Voice AI solution is that it either works and satisfies the consumer, leading to positive outcomes and recovery, or it will lead to consumer frustration and significantly adverse outcomes. Hence the choice of vendor is highly vital. Here are a few things to consider: 

  • Proven Track Record: To ensure a successful implementation, working with a Voice AI provider with a proven track record in the industry and who can provide a comprehensive and integrated solution is essential.
  • Ease of Integration: Another challenge when implementing Voice AI in debt collections is ensuring the technology is integrated with existing systems and processes. The provider’s capability to integrate with existing systems is one of the significant factors that must be considered while selecting the Voice AI vendor. 
  • Ease of Deployment: One of the critical challenges in implementing Voice AI in debt collections is ensuring that the technology is user-friendly for debt collectors and customers. Make sure that your vendor’s solution is easy to use and deploy. 
  • Speed of Deployment: The solution must be ready. No promise of building a solution in a few months should be considered because no working product is ready. Select a vendor ready to go live with essential inputs from your end.
  • Positive Business Outcomes: Look at the results they have been about to achieve in the recent past. Match it with the outcomes you want to achieve, and only then will deploying that Voice AI solution be successful. 

Make the Right Choice 

The technology is remarkable and has proved its worth. The only thing left for debt collectors is the selection of the right Voice AI vendor. Select the right vendor, and it will help you gain a competitive edge and show your tangible positive outcomes in a matter of weeks. 

Voice AI technology is about to change debt collections forever; don’t miss out! 

To learn more about how Voice AI can help support your human resources and scale their collection efforts with call automation, schedule a call with one of our experts or use the chat tool below.

How Voicebots Can Help Collection Agencies Prepare for Tax Season

Posted on by Simone Somekh

Tax season is the busiest time for collection agencies. With 3 in 4 U.S. residents receiving a tax refund from the government during this season each year, many of those who need to settle a debt wisely take advantage of these reimbursements to pay off their outstanding balances. In 2022, the average tax refund for individuals in the U.S. was $3,039.

Collection agencies can take advantage of this window of opportunity to maximize recovery rates and agency profits. During tax season, the industry usually experiences a peak in payments, paired with a general openness of consumers to engage with collectors. This year, due to the high inflation rates, many consumers will be relying on tax refunds to pay off their debt.

Call automation with Voice AI — the technology behind voicebots — can transform tax season for the better, making it a less stressful and more profitable time for collection agencies. In this article, we’ll go over how agencies can prepare for the volume surge in calls during tax season by adopting Conversational Voice AI.

The Challenges Collection Agencies Face Before and During Tax Season

While tax season undoubtedly represents a window of opportunity, it also presents several challenges for collection agencies. The best way for management to tackle these challenges is to prepare in advance and to involve their collectors on the floor in these preparations.

Here are some of the most common challenges collection agencies face before and during tax season:

Hiring new collectors: To handle the surge in call volume, collection executives often need to hire new collectors to join their staff. How many collectors should you hire? Hiring takes time and resources, as managers don’t want to hire the wrong person; since the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s become more challenging to find new talent, as people are inclined to seek more flexible jobs, and salaries have become more competitive. You’ll need ample time to find new talent and train new hires.

Training staff to prepare for the season: Whether newly hired or seasoned, all collectors should receive the appropriate training before the beginning of tax season. All training materials should be easily accessible, focusing on the challenges and skills specific to this time of the year.

Updating the agency’s compliance management system: Every agency should have a compliance management system — often found within the collections management software. This system is used to store and organize the current laws and regulations of the ARM industry. Before tax season begins, the agency’s compliance officer or manager should ensure that the system is up to date with the latest regulations; outdated regulations should be removed. Additionally, this system should be easy to access and browse for collectors.

Planning a successful settlement campaign: The surge in collection volume encourages some agencies to offer small discounts for a limited time; other agencies take it to the next level by planning a wide-scale settlement campaign. For a settlement campaign, the agency focuses on a specific group of accounts, typically consumers with higher recovery rates and debt whose age falls within a specific timeframe. If the agency services third-party debt, then it also needs to coordinate the campaign with the original creditors. Executives must decide what balance reduction they are going to offer those consumers and the running time of the campaign. The entire process can make the agency extremely busy, and things are likely to get hectic for the collectors on the floor.

How Voice AI Can Make Your Life Easier During Tax Season

Voice AI, the technology behind voicebots, is taking the ARM industry by storm. Voice AI enables first and third-party collection agencies to automate unlimited collection calls and process on-call payments, making it much easier for executives to scale up their collection campaigns without the need to hire extra or seasonal representatives.

A Voice AI solution like Skit.ai’s Digital Voice Agent contacts the consumer, establishes right-party contact, reminds them of the outstanding balance, and encourages them to make an on-call payment. The agent can also offer the consumer alternative payment options and intelligently handle a dispute. It’s important to note that Voice AI is not IVR (interactive voice response), an outdated and unpopular solution commonly used in customer service.

Call automation with Voice AI is transforming collections across the board, as it enables collection agencies to handle many more accounts simultaneously, recovering debt at a fraction of the cost. Additionally, this technology augments the work of live collectors, who are empowered to handle more complex cases and focus on more revenue-generating tasks.

While this technology is helpful all year round, during tax season it becomes particularly essential. Here’s why:

Make it super easy for consumers to pay. Any roadblock in the payment process can significantly hinder the recovery of the debt. That’s why customer experience plays an important role, and making the payment as easy and frictionless as possible is a priority for your agency. Voice AI makes the process smooth and pleasant for consumers.

No need to hire additional collectors during tax season: Voice AI enables executives and managers to scale their operations, without the need to hire additional collectors during this busy season. This way, they can continue to rely on their trusted team and get the extra help they need from the Digital Voice Agents, who are unlimited in number and can handle thousands of calls simultaneously. Collections with Voice AI are significantly cheaper; additionally, voicebots don’t take any commission!

Fewer concerns about compliance thanks to Voice AI: Executives can worry less about complying with laws and regulations since the Digital Voice Agent is fully trained to comply with regulations at the state and federal levels. Unlike live collectors, the automated agent is always compliant and does not go off script.

Execute a smooth settlement campaign at scale: With Voice AI, collection agencies can execute a settlement campaign at scale, reaching thousands of consumers in a very short amount of time to offer the settlement and collect the payments.

Are you ready to take the next step toward call automation with Voice AI? Schedule a free demo with one of our experts using the chat tool below!

Human Collectors vs. AI-powered Digital Collectors: An In-depth Comparison

Posted on by Vanishree Bhatt

Voice AI is becoming mainstream in the ARM industry, and the days of chasing after customers for unrecovered debts in the most haphazard, manual fashion are nearly over. Additionally, thanks to the rising popularity of self-service channels and the ecosystem-led push involving regulatory changes like the Reg F that rewrite the expectations for debt recovery in the U.S. beyond simple automation.

Voice AI conveniently fits the bill for debt collection agencies by fixing the systemized inefficiencies with automation and analytics-driven voice communication outreach. In this article, we will explore why human-like voice interactions handled by AI-powered Digital Voice Agents help debt collection companies drive effective consumer interactions at better collection cost, performance, and efficiency ratio.

7 Ways Voice AI Helps Elevate Debt Collectors’ Productivity

At Skit.ai, we call it Augmented Voice Intelligence — the idea that Voice AI can augment, rather than substitute, the work of live agents and collectors. Let’s dive into the benefits of this strategy:

Human-like Conversations: Voice AI is purpose-built and modeled on human conversations. Digital Voice Agents can hold thousands of outbound customer outreach calls simultaneously, without the involvement of human collectors, helping collection agencies carry out human-like interactions at lesser cost and effort from their human resources.

Seamless Integrations: Voice AI’s integration features feed data from collection calls, such as right-party contact, call-back requests, no response, and more, into the collection management system to provide actionable insights for human collectors to be more proactive.

Higher Portfolio Coverage: Collection agencies can leverage Digital Voice Agents to scale collection outreach calls for different consumer accounts and across diverse portfolios with unique requests for payment alternatives, call-back options, or preferred time of contact.

Versatile and Accurate: Intelligent voice bots can be tailored according to the use case, offer profound insights for analytics on future actions, independently schedule automated triggers, auto call-back on request, and even make intelligent call transfers to human agents/live collectors for complex issues. 

Better Compliance and Privacy: Voice AI’s algorithms can be trained to follow regulatory protocols on reaching customers, communication time, frequency or calls, and honoring their requests for discontinuing communication using APIs. It can be challenging to adhere to all the norms when done manually. Also, Voice AI’s strong encryption and consumers’ or cardholders’ data protection features comply with regulatory standards like HIPAA, PCI, FCRA, and more.

Lower Litigation: Voice AI lowers litigation risks compared to human agents, who are more likely to coerce consumers to pay with the hope of meeting targets and receiving higher commissions. Additionally, consumers are generally passive toward Voice AI and pin fewer expectations on the technology to understand their emotions or personal grief, reducing the odds of agencies ending up with lawsuits.

Better Insights and Analysis: Debt collection agencies can draw on the insights gathered by Digital Voice Agents to learn about consumers’ or callers’ experiences and conversations to design or augment debt collection processes for better collection campaigns, collectors’ experiences, and higher recovery rates. 

How AI-powered Digital Collectors Can Outperform Live Collectors 

While Voice AI embodies the promise of automation with a human touch, collection agencies don’t rely on anecdotal evidence. They look for value-creation and tenacity to transform traditional loan recovery practices with the technologies to a level that human resources alone cannot match. Skit.ai firmly believes in realizing the potential of voice communication in debt recovery by augmenting human support with AI for intelligent human-machine collaboration.

Here are the key differentiating features of Voice AI that match collection requirements and make processes more efficient in responding to various outbound debt collection use cases.

Collection Support Scalability: Voice AI can automate up to 70% of calls, helping curb hiring, recruitment, and training-related requirements in collection agencies. Additionally, Digital Voice Agents help leverage unlimited scalability by simultaneously handling multiple collection calls, which would otherwise be very time consuming and expensive when done manually.

Higher Cost Savings: Voice AI processes non-revenue generating calls at 1/5th of the cost of manual calls. Also, they are capable of decreasing operational costs by 50%.

24/7 Support: Digital Collectors can always be at the beck and call of consumers to offer 24/7 support. Delivering 24/7 support with human resources would be extremely costly and unrealistic.

Lower AHT: Voice AI guarantees better performance and can handle multi-turn conversations with prompt query resolution. It reduces average call handling time (AHT) by 40% and augments human agent teams’ efforts by transferring only complex queries and equipping them with real-time analytics and insights.

Higher Debt Collection and Recovery Rate: Skit.ai’s Digital Collectors have repeatedly demonstrated performance at par with average debt collectors while operating at less than 1/5th the cost of a human agent.

Better Account Classification: Unlike manual debt collection efforts, Voice AI’s ML classification models algorithms are trained to segregate consumers as per bankruptcy details, creditworthiness, outstanding loan amounts, blocked accounts, and do-not-call lists, to help collectors or accounts receivable managers respond appropriately.

Higher Accountability and Compliance: Digital Voice Agents are trained to comply with strict practices in debt collections (7/7/7 rule, TCPA, Mini-Miranda, etc.) and refrain from the usage of unsavory language or behavior that can later result in lawsuits to the agency, which would be challenging to regulate in manual collection use cases. Besides the analytics-driven insights on consumer responses and history, Digital Voice Agents guarantee higher accountability.

Complete Campaign Control: Digital Collectors can be turned on or off as per use case to match the call volume requirement or type of consumers’ requests and accounts, unlike calls by live collectors with efficiency issues and too much time, resources, and training. 

Consistent Call Quality: Voice AI delivers consistent experiences at any scale and volume. It is humanly impossible to ensure the call experience remains the same and guarantees similar outcomes for all debtors’ conversations from manual collection campaigns.

The Bottom Line: Voice AI  is the Key to Supercharge Debt Collections 

It is time to embrace the reality that neither automation nor pure human intelligence can help debt collection agencies to master complex collection campaigns. Skit.ai’s Augmented Voice Intelligence platforms like Skit.ai enable the collaboration between humans and AI-powered machines to respond to the mounting operational stresses in debt collection agencies. These solutions empower live collectors to perform consistently throughout the debt collection process at a better cost, productivity, and recovery rate.

To learn more about how Voice AI can help reimagine debt collection efforts with call automation, schedule a call with one of our experts or use the chat tool below.

Tackle Agent Attrition in Debt Collection Agencies Using Voice AI

Posted on by Vanishree Bhatt

For debt collection agencies, debt recovery is a labor-intensive effort that typically relies more on human effort than capital investments. Even with the adoption of newer digital communication tools that promise to scale manual efforts, the ARM industry invariably struggles with one major issue — human resource turnover.

Across all industries, average attrition rates in contact centers vary between 30 to 40%.

It’s hard to know the exact attrition rate in the ARM industry. Agencies reported a monthly quit rate of 2.9% in 2021. Before the pandemic, in 2016, large collection agencies reported experiencing an average turnover rate of 75% to 100%, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The high attrition that characterizes the collections space makes third-party debt collection agencies vulnerable to several challenges, like loss of domain expertise, risk of non-compliance, lawsuits, and increased cost of hiring and training new talent. In the United States, with nearly one in four citizens having at least one debt in collections, recovery has become an increasingly costly endeavor.

Most Common Reasons for Collection Agent Attrition in the Debt Collection Industry 

Here are some of the most common challenges that make it so difficult for agencies to retain collectors:

  • Too Many Accounts, Too Much Work: Given the growing debt delinquency in the U.S., one can only imagine the amount of verification and debt-related communication work that can drive collectors to overwork.
  • Collectors’ Commission is Dependent on Recovery: Third-party debt collection agencies are involved when credit card issuers or creditors’ collection representatives cannot recover overdue balances. Collection agencies face thinning profit margins, and human agents’ commissions for debt recovery further burn holes in their pockets. There is no set rule or guarantee on the time the human agents need to recover outstanding loans successfully.
  • The Great Resignation: While all contact centers face high attrition rates, many people have been rethinking their careers and seeking opportunities in new fields over the last two years. This also applies to the ARM industry, where collection agents face acute stress from chasing after customers over the phone while adhering to a wide array of regulations, making attrition an even bigger challenge.
  • Empty Promises to Pay: It is common to find consumers dodging debt-related interactions. When confronted directly, they are likely to make promises to pay that may only sometimes be honored, which is another detractor for collectors to stick to their roles.
  • Debt Shame: Debt collection calls are direct and can sometimes make the debtors uncomfortable delving into the details of their unpaid loans. According to a study by Webio, people can be much more honest when communicating via text messages than in voice interactions for difficult scenarios. In the case of debt collections, textual conversations can reduce stress for both debtor and collector.
  • Efforts Often Don’t Justify Conversion Rates: When it comes to debt, the devil is in the details. To invest too much attention and time in each customer who needs a detailed overview of their loans and debts is unrealistic. It is extremely costly and leads to operational overkill, another reason for collectors’ resignation.
  • Debt Collection is Not for Everyone: Employee turnover in any field results from the nature of the job/employer and the employee’s capabilities. Working conditions, perks, quality of work, and benefits will fix the collector’s morale. But employees’ capabilities for the job determine how much they are willing to stick to it. 
  • Rapid Changes in Regulatory Framework: Many regulatory agencies like FTC and rules like Fair Debt Collection Practices Act dictate how collection agencies can approach consumers without violating consumer protection laws. It requires constant staff training and procedural approaches like obtaining debt verification requests, debt validation, forbearance, and foreclosures that rely on unique expertise. When agencies adopt a manual route or use restrictive debtor communication methods, errors and inaccuracies are expected.

 The Rising Role of Voice AI in the Debt Collections Industry

These challenges highlight the urgency for digital transformation in collection agencies; in particular, agencies are looking at automation as the primary solution to their attrition crisis.

In our previous articles, we discussed the unique capabilities of Voice AI technology in reducing contact center agent labor costs via call automation. Concurrently, Gartner’s estimates from their survey also suggest that labor expenses represent 95% of contact center costs, and adopting Conversational AI helps cut expenses by $80 billion. The customer-facing side of ARM, particularly the debt collection agencies, can capitalize on this trend to reduce staff shortages, curb labor expenses and make human resources more efficient and effective. 

Skit.ai’s Voice AI platform is at the forefront of transforming the ARM industry with its Digital Voice Agents and augmenting collection agencies’ workforce to focus on resolving complex use cases. 

Voice AI’s value-adds are in areas that impact collectors’ productivity and bandwidth which further determine talent retention in this space. Here’s the rundown of its merits that help address agent attrition challenge in the debt collections industry:

  1. End-to-end Call Automation: Voice AI helps automate 70% of calls (inbound and outbound), allowing prompt query resolution. Also, agencies can leverage automation to identify consumers, policy numbers, and other debt-related information. This reduces the effort and time it would take to call and follow up with each debtor manually. 
  2. Reduce High Cost of Collection by 1/5th: Digital Voice Agents that plug into contact centers and take over calls by holding human-like conversations can execute calls at less than 1/5th of the actual cost of manual calls. Collection agencies can lower operation costs with intelligent voice agents in lieu of collectors by concurrently calling over thousands of defaulters.
  3. High Scalability: Agencies can scale their debt collection efforts and consumer outreach by leveraging call automation and Digital Voice Agents that can handle and answer tier-1 caller queries by automating up to 70% of calls, reducing dependency on human agents. 
  4. Higher Portfolio Coverage Intensity: Collectors can cover many more debt files when they leverage Voice AI’s ability to handle multiple calls simultaneously. With minimal effort, cost and time, agencies expand their scale of reach of debt collection practices with minimal human intervention.
  5. Strict Adherence to Compliance: Fear of lawsuits or going off track by the debt collectors will be alleviated by the Voice AI platform, which is purpose-built and specific to the domain and use case. Digital Voice Agents can be tailored to hold and attend calls as per the laws governing consumers’ preference for call frequency, tone, language, and time to receive debt collection calls.
  6. Solve Diverse Use Cases: The recovery process in the collection agencies involves rigorous reviews, checking outstanding balances, sending demand and acknowledgment letters, and arranging for telephone contact. It is humanly impossible to keep track of all details, numbers, and sensitive information about different types of debt and cases at their fingertips. Digital Voice Agents can be optimized to address various debt-related queries and use cases without time, cost, and human effort constraints, reducing work stress and dissatisfaction for debt collectors. 
  7. Enhance Human Agent Productivity: Debt collectors can experience higher and faster conversion levels by leveraging Voice AI’s analytics and caller data insights. The pre-call verification, call automation (inbound and outbound), and routing features enable real-time agent augmentation, boosting productivity and performance. Also, the Digital Voice Agents are capable of intelligent call transfers to human agents only for complex cases, allowing the human workforce to focus on efforts that help retrieve debts faster. 
  8. Voice AI Calls are Free of Human Biases: Holding debt recovery conversations is a sticky collection practice that most consumers tend to avoid out of pressure, discomfort, shame, and fear of judgment. Voice AI’s call automation capability eliminates direct voice interaction between defaulters and collection agents, making collection calls free of human biases. Also, Digital Voice Agents can hold persuasive, contextually accurate, and proactive conversations and keep interactions direct and objective. This way, collection agents can experience higher work quality without job stress, dissatisfaction, and the chances of misdemeanors while talking to consumers. 

Collection agencies rely entirely on outstanding loan payments to survive. Voice AI helps collection agencies strike a balance between meeting their recovery targets and making debt collection efforts more intuitive in a way that doesn’t come at the cost of operational burnouts and resignations. Voice AI eliminates bottlenecks in debt recovery and improves the overall customer experience.

To learn more about how Voice AI can help you solve attrition challenges, schedule a call with one of our experts or use the chat tool below.

How ARM Companies Can Boost Right-Party Contact with Voice AI

Posted on by Simone Somekh

What Are Connect Rate and Right-Party Contact (RPC)?

Debt collection agencies invest time and resources in getting in touch with consumers. In theory, all it takes for a collector to speak with a consumer is to hit the call button, but in reality, it’s not that simple; oftentimes, the number is wrong, the consumer does not answer the phone, or the wrong person picks up the phone.

Connect rate and right-party contact rate are two metrics that significantly affect the outbound operations of a contact center.

Connect rate measures the percentage of successful attempts a collector makes in which someone picks up the phone. Right-party contact rate is the percentage of calls in which an agent is able to connect with the target consumer, which could be either the debtor or a relative who has been given permission to handle the debt. Right-party contact (RPC) is the most accurate measure of the effectiveness of an agency’s outbound calling efforts.

☎️ Factors that affect connect and right-party contact rates
❌ Wrong number
⛔️ Busy line
💬 No answer
📩 Voicemail
🙅🏽‍♀️ Wrong party answers the phone

Why Right-Party Contact Can Be a Challenge for Collection Agencies

Collectors know it very well: reaching consumers can be tricky.

Given the limitations imposed by the TCPA and the FDCPA, collectors can’t call debtors at any given time of the day. While timing is everything, even a well-staffed agency can only contact consumers so many times in order to reach them, as the number of available collectors is limited and you don’t want them to spend too much time trying to reach the same numbers too often.

Right-party contact can be a serious challenge for collection agencies. Collectors (and their managers) want to spend as much time as possible actually speaking to consumers and collecting payments — and as little time as possible trying to reach people on the phone. Calls not resulting in RPC don’t lead to a collection (nor a commission for the collector), and result in an overall waste of resources.

This is where automation and artificial intelligence come into play.

Dive deeper: What Is Call Automation and How Can It Impact Debt Collections?

How Voice AI Solves the RPC Issue for ARM Companies

With rising costs, high attrition rates, and a looming recession, ARM companies are looking at digital transformation and automation as valid solutions to their operational challenges.

Contact centers in all industries have been relying on automatic dialing systems (or auto dialer software) for decades. These systems make the dialing process faster and easier, boosting agent productivity; in addition to queueing calls and dialing the target number automatically, they also screen out inactive numbers, busy lines, and answering machines, drastically improving the contact center’s connect rate.

But what about right-party contact? 

Once the collector reaches a person on the phone, they must establish whether the person they are speaking to is the right party (the consumer or debtor) or not. The right party could also be a third party (a person authorized to handle the debt or an attorney representing the debtor). This process can take a few minutes.

With a Voice AI solution like Skit.ai, a Digital Voice Agent (DVA) handles the actual call — rather than just the dialing process. Once someone picks up the phone, the DVA can easily confirm right-party contact and engage with the debtor, offering ways to pay off their debt. If needed, the DVA can transfer the call to a live agent, who can assist with more complex queries.

The entire process is faster and cheaper and allows the collection agency to save time and money. Below, you can see a step-by-step summary of how a Digital Voice Agent handles a debt collection call:

Learn more: ​​What to Look for When Purchasing a Voice AI Solution for Debt Collections

Are you interested in learning how Voice AI can transform your collection agency’s results? Schedule a call with one of Skit.ai’s experts using the chat tool below.

How Voice AI Helps Debt Collections Companies Improve Top and Bottom Lines

Posted on by Harshad Bajpai

Many debt collection companies are evaluating emerging technologies and looking into digital transformation. You can’t blame them: due to a faltering economy, rising costs, and high agent attrition, new processes and solutions are needed.

As a result, within the next three years, one in every ten interactions with call center agents will be voice bots driven, according to the new Gartner report. These findings are directly attributable to the spectacular rise to the advances in conversational artificial intelligence (AI), along with the mounting challenges we detailed above.

The report also estimates that by 2026, Conversational AI could save about $80 billion in labor costs! That is a significant number, indicative of the merits that early adopters will have in terms of cost, CX, and expansion of top and bottom lines. But, starting early is key to competitive advantage.

It is an open secret that high human agent churn is due to the fact that most calls are low-value and tediously repetitive. By handling these calls, Conversational AI will make the agents’ jobs more exciting and fulfilling, allowing them to focus on high-value and complex calls.

Globally, there are approximately 17 million contact center agents, and their cost makes up 95% of contact center costs. By intelligent call automation led by voice-intelligent technology, Voice AI, a big part of unproductive calls can be taken over by Digital Voice Agents, yielding high cost and CX advantages.

The Direct Cost and Efficiency Benefits of Voice AI for Debt Collection Agencies:

The most significant takeaway for the debt collection agency is that the benefits of Voice AI implementation are tangible and quickly realizable. But before we go into stats, here is a simple explanation of what essentially happens in a debt collection agency when they deploy a voicebot.

Voicebot Functioning

A voicebot is a conversational Voice AI application that can understand what the customer is saying as it is trained for a specific customer problem. It can strike a meaningful conversation with the customer. This happens because the entire conversation design has been done keeping in mind all the possible difficulties a customer can encounter.

So for every customer query, the voicebot has a ready answer as it pulls out relevant information from the client system and informs the customer, cutting the duration of the conversation remarkably.

Digital Voice Agents (DVA) Vs. IVRs: It is worth mentioning here that DVAs are remarkably different from IVRs; in fact, there is no comparison between the two. DVAs are at the cutting edge of the technological spectrum, while IVRs are legacy technology.

IVR can not converse. It is an unintelligent technology that runs a tedious exchange of inputs and outputs. For something as sensitive as debt collections, it is remarkably unsuitable.

Digital Voice Agent is AI-powered, built on Spoken Language Understanding (SLU) and context-rich conversational designs.

Dive deeper: The difference between Digital Voice Agents and Outbound Robocallers 

For a debt collections company, the two main categories of calls are Inbound and Outbound. Here is the process of value creation:

Inbound Calls: Many agencies cannot process a significant portion of customer calls. From them, a tiny fraction of customers have called to pay and perhaps need guidance.

Answering Non-revenue Generating Calls 

The data from various sources is precise: A majority of calls are so simple that answering them by a human agent does not add any value to the company.

We’ve discussed the value of adopting a Digital Voice Agent for call automation. If you want to learn more, take a look at our Resources page, in which we regularly explore current topics related to the ARM industry.

Understanding the Top and Bottom Line Impact of a Voice AI Solution on a Debt Collection Company

The Final Word

Voice AI has proved its capability in bringing about a transformation of contact centers either with a small team or a big one. As its adoption increases, it will become a technology that can deliver sustainable cost advantages as well as a competitive advantage.

Refer to our Voice AI page for more information about its transformative potential.

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