For today’s posting I will start by recanting a recent personal credit card company customer disaster and end by explaining how a few simple automation changes could have prevented this fiasco.
On May 24, 2009, I signed up to autopay my gasoline credit card. Almost immediately after hitting the send button, I received a transaction comfirmation that acknowledged and thanked me for signing up for autodraft.
My teenager greeted me when walking in the door after a 60 hour week on Friday, July 10th with notice that he had received numerous weird automatted telephone calls from a credit card company about not paying my bill. What’s the matter Dad, “I have heard about having to get power of attorney to take care of your elderly parents affairs, but I was at least hoping this wouldn’t happen until I graduated from high school.”
Moments later my telephone rang again with the auto dialer again. The automatted announcement informed me that we are calling because you are a dead beat and did not pay your credit card bill. Please press one to speak with somebody about this.
I pressed one and after a fairly long wait to speak to someone who had urgently been trying to reach me all day, informed me that I had missed my gasoline card payment that was due on June 16th.
My response, “This is due to no oversight on my own. I am signed up for auto payment.” By then I was already logged into my email and recanted that I had indeed signed up for auto payment on May 24th and still have the confirmation.
The Collector Responded, “The auto payment does not become effective until the second billing cycle and June 16th had only been the first.”
By then I had already logged into the card’s online statement and learned that my account had been accessed a $39 “late fee” plus a little over six dollars interest.” I suggested as a resolution to pay the balance in full manually, but wanted the Collector agree to reverse the late fee and interest charge. “After all, I had done my job. I authorized your company to draw the funds directly from my checking account, exactly to avoid not paying on time. The confirmation needs to state, the auto payment transaction you just authorized does not kick in until the second billing cycle.”
The Collector assured me that she would send a note to a supervisor about the extenuating circumstances and request a reversal of the fees.
I immediately scheduled a manual payment from my checking account to go out as soon as possible, which was the next working day Monday.
Walking in the door on July 14th, my teenager greeted me with, “They kept calling again today.”
About that time, ring, ring, this is your automatted credit card dialer calling again. I picked up the call and after about a ten minute wait to speak to a Collector who had such an urgent need to reach me again, she told me that I had not paid my previous month’s bill. It was as if the previous conversation had not occured.
I logged into my bank account and verified that I had sent the funds to the credit card company on Monday. Logging into the credit card company’s website surprisingly told me that they already showed my payment in full had alreadybeen received. To add insult to injury, the statement still listed the late fee and interest charges. After letting a few choice words rip, the Collector hung up on me.
I decided to see if I could break the loop that I seemed to be caught in by calling the number on the back of the card. This time I reached a US based call center. After speaking to a front line worker about my situation, and being informed that she did not have authority to break a computer loop and reverse the fees, I asked to speak to her supervisor.
The supervisor was both very apologetic about the whole situation, and also agreed that I should not have to pay the fees, which she promptly reversed.
This entire story and the customer service problems are not a people problem. It is a computer systems problem. A few simple AR Automation Capabilities, which Cforia can supply, can fix everything.
Problem 1 was the automatted dialer working on a fixed schedule and does what it is told to do, Dial and Dial and Dial, until the money is received. During my first call with the Collector, I offered to make the payment in it’s entirety in exchange for them getting rid of the fees.
Cforia Software allows our customers to make this sort of transactions with their customers. It is called a Promise-To-Pay Transaction (PTP). One of the main features of a robust PTP, is that the PTP allows a Collector to crank the tickler system to enough days in the future to allow the promise money to physically get to them. Calling me on Tuesday for a promise made on the previous Friday evening is a little excessive. (I wonder if the state agencies that regulate this sort of thing would have to say about it.}
Problem 2 was that the credit card company had outsourced their collections without granting sufficient authority or providing a way to escalate problems that they cannot handle. Collections becomes a Customer Service and Quality job the second that one of your customers tells you the reason that they are not making the payment is because (fill in the blank).
Our system provides the ability to escalate problems to someone else who has authority to do something about it. Basically all this call center was authorized to do is bother people until they pay.
Problem 3 was that the offshore call center was operating off of a AR Automation database that is not real-time. It is probably a batch update system that synchronizes every night during the wee hours of the morning. That is how I was able to see my payment had been made, while the call center was still flying blind.
Cforia Software is the only company in the Accounts Receivable Automation marketplace who offers real-time data synchronization. Doesn’t it make sense not bothering your customers who have already paid? I bet credit regulatory agencies agree. Their collectors could also bring in more money, if they spent their time calling people who have not paid their bill?
Recapping:
- Robust Promise-To-Pay Transaction.
- Problem escalation and collaboration capability.
- Real-Time data when collecting.
As follow up I have reached out to the credit card company to let them know about their broken process and how Cforia can help them fix it.
