The past few years have posed several notable challenges for the collections industry. The cumulative impact of the pandemic, Regulation F, changes to the regulations around medical debt collection, and the currently unpredictable regulatory environment has collections firms of all sizes looking for ways to reduce costs and improve their efficiency.
Often, the solutions to those challenges revolve around the intelligent application of new technologies. Some are consumer-facing, such as interactive payment portals and chatbots. Other tools, including Spokeo for Collections, focus on driving recoveries and reducing costs through more efficient skip tracing and debtor outreach. The newest version of our product adds powerful new automation features that can sharply cut costs and staffing needs, and improve ROI, for agencies at any scale.
Let’s take a look at how they translate to your real-world needs.
The Data on Your Books is Always Dated
One fundamental reality of the business is that the data in your files, especially for third-party collections, is always dated. Legacy data providers work primarily from credit headers, and the data provided by banks and other financial institutions is both limited and relatively static. Many Americans are also unbanked or underbanked (at 4.2% and 14.2%, respectively, according to the FDIC), and are poorly represented in traditional data sources. Between the inevitable decay of data’s accuracy with age (sometimes called “data rot”) and the large numbers of debtors whose data is incomplete or entirely missing from those legacy data sources, finding the debtor (right person contact, or RPC) can be a costly, time-consuming drain on returns.
Spokeo for Collections is a nimbler, more modern tool. While it still draws from conventional regulated sources, including credit headers, it cross-references those against billions of other data points from official public and open-source data. Most importantly, Spokeo’s expertise in social media, and its best-in-class capabilities in social media search, provide a wealth of frequently updated data derived directly from consumers’ own public posts.
Manual vs Batch Searching
Spokeo’s search interface is clean and simple to use, and most staff require minimal training in order to use it effectively. Even so, conducting manual searches is a time-consuming limitation, especially for agencies with minimal staff or those whose business is growing rapidly. Spokeo has a powerful set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which give agencies the opportunity to integrate its search results with other data sources or analytical tools for batch processing, but that requires a degree of IT support that’s typically only available to large and well-funded agencies.
We’ve been working hard to address that, and our new Batch Append feature — available now in Spokeo’s most recent release — is the solution. Using Batch Append, collections agents can quickly and easily batch-search a block of debtor information, executing the equivalent of thousands of individual searches with just a few keystrokes. Batch Append cross-checks the debtors on your list against the billions of data points available to Spokeo, and updates them en masse to provide more complete and up-to-date information, with no programming or IT support required.
Let’s consider a few specific real-world benefits for this kind of tool.
1. Eliminating Trial and Error
Traditionally, attempting to make contact with the individual debtors on your list was the only practical way to learn whether your contact information was accurate. This is time-consuming and impractical, especially for agencies still relying on phone calls and physical mail to establish contact (email and other digital communication methods are somewhat more efficient). Batch Append makes “data hygiene” simple, providing a clean and updated set of contact information before you start outreach. Eliminating trial and error effortlessly sharply increases your efficiency, effortlessly and in minimal time.
2. Gaining a Broader Set of Contact Options
Spokeo’s data fleshes out your debtor contact information in ways that legacy providers can’t. After a Batch Append search, your files may include anything from additional phone numbers (important, with SMS text messaging becoming an important collections tool) to email addresses and social media or messaging-app accounts. Each of these represents a previously unavailable communications option and a greater likelihood of making contact. Research shows that using a consumer’s preferred contact method improves outcomes, making this even more important.
3. Strengthening Your Compliance Position
At first blush, the current administration’s reduction of the CFPB’s regulatory power might sound favorable to the collections industry. In practice, local and state levels can still enact their own regulations, even if that same level of oversight no longer exists at the federal level. (An early example: New York City has passed sweeping new rules on debt collection, which will come into effect in October 2025)
In a fragmented regulatory environment, any agency pursuing collections across multiple jurisdictions will be at risk of violations in the absence of accurate, up-to-date location information for debtors. With Batch Append, this becomes a relatively simple and straightforward exercise.
4. Culling Uncollectible Debt From Your Books
One significant way agencies can improve their efficiency (and ROI) is through the reduction or elimination of non-productive activities by staff. The quintessential example of non-productive activity is spending time on debts that are uncollectible because the debtor has died or is an active member of the military, for example.
With our latest upgrade, it’s now straightforward for any agency (with or without in-house IT resources) to screen a block of records for debtors who are now deceased or are currently residing at a military address. Eliminating those uncollectible debts from your book of business saves time, labor, and the financial penalty of attempting to contact them, improving ROI.
5. Maximizing Your Data and Analytics Tools
Many strategies for improving collection results and ROI revolve around finding creative ways to segment the debtors on your books, isolating those with characteristics that might point to a higher likelihood of payment. There’s a thriving marketplace of data and analytics products designed for that purpose, and they all have one thing in common: they’re only as good as the data you can provide them.
Batch Append provides fast, easy access to Spokeo’s billions of data points, providing richly detailed, up-to-date information on the debtors you need to work with. The better the data you can provide as inputs, the better the data your analytics software can provide as outputs. In effect, Spokeo with Batch Append magnifies the value of your analytics tools and maximizes the return on your committed resources.
Investing In the Right Tools
The past few years have been unsettled and chaotic in the collections industry, and the next few years are likely to provide more of the same. In times of upheaval, some companies become defensive and aim simply to survive. They curtail their expenses and hope to ride out the storm. Others see an opportunity to thrive and grow, and invest intelligently in tools that can make them more competitive.
Spokeo for Collections is one of those tools. To gain a fuller understanding of just how powerfully our product can impact your business, reach out to our team today and ask for a demonstration, or (better yet) a no-cost, hands-on trial.
Sources
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: 2023 FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households
McKinsey Company: The Customer Mandate to Digitize Collections Strategies
New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection: Frequently Asked Questions on New Rules for Debt Collectors