TARGET

Throughout the history of the contact center, much of the analysis around incoming data has been quantitative in nature – calls received, average hold time, call length, resolution rate. Today, there is more customer data coming into each agent portal than companies may know what to do with. But it’s not the amount of data that’s important. It’s what contact centers do with the data and how they analyze learned insights to make better decisions and strategic business moves.

An article from Ivey Business Journal suggests that utilizing big data is the only way for businesses to stay competitive. Big data, or “large pools of data that can be brought together and analyzed to discern patterns and make better decisions,” the author specifies, “will become the basis of competition and growth for individual firms, enhancing productivity and creating significant value for the world economy by reducing waste and increasing the quality of products and services.”

With the advent of big data there are more requirements for sophisticated data warehousing. Similarly, data management has to match the increasing demand for broader solutions that address multiple types of data. Successful contact centers are finding that using outsourced partners that own a sophisticated data warehouse can benefit their productivity and results on many levels.

Here five important ways that partnership is productive:

• increased liquidation across your portfolio;
• reduction in customer complaints;
• higher call penetration on the areas of the portfolio with higher payment probability;
• bad number removal at the onset of the relationship; and
• detailed reporting and analysis sharing from the partner.

Contact centers are leveraging data warehouses to maximize portfolio recoveries, regardless of age, while constantly improving efforts in customer service and compliance. The wealth of available information allows supervisors and management to identify consumers who most likely have a history of paying their debts.

Simultaneously, they can pull previous contact information onto the new account to efficiently build on previous efforts. Access to this detail of data stratifies consumer profiles, differentiating consumers who consistently don’t pay and have a history of litigious behavior, with the customers who made a one-time mistake in not paying a bill. 

Using big data to mainstream work efforts is just smart business for contact centers. Varied processes are used to build a system to track contact efforts, score skip-phone returns, monitor vendor performance, and customize strategies to the unique needs of the consumer. Among those processes are advanced voice analytics and customized predictive models that consider information from customers and information vendors.

Here are some other benefits:

• internal consumer record skip tracing;
• continuous monitoring of vendor results;
• priority calling using phone scoring;
• rigorous process and compliance control using analytics;
• litigious and high-risk consumer scrub; and
• leveraging internal data to identify and contact known payers for faster recoveries.

Sherri Carter is vice president of business development for Convergent Outsourcing Inc.