VoiceSage New Customer Swift Slashes RPC Costs by 89%

28th August 2013 No Comments

Secured lender Swift says an Interactive Voice Messaging (IVM) and text (SMS) messaging solution from VoiceSage has slashed costs and improved customer service.

Eight weeks in and the organisation’s collections department has already reported improved contact rate and costs per contact cut by a remarkable 89% – as well as excellent service and innovation.

The Swift Group of companies specialise in the non-conforming secured lending market. Part of the Alchemy Group, the organisation, funded by many of the leading banks in the UK, aims to provide customers with the high levels of customer service as well as 100% transparency on all its products.

The Reason for Change

Swift had been using an IVM service to contact clients but Swift’s management team was unhappy with performance, as well as the level of service it was receiving. “We knew we weren’t getting what we should from the solution,” explains Jonathon Pearson, a collections & contacts strategy analyst hired at the beginning of 2013 to help the team improve its results in this core area of the business.

One of the problems with the system was a lack of customer verification: this too often meant the majority of those transferred did not want to talk to the agents, or were not the correct contact in the first place.

In response, a decision was made to evaluate alternative IVM support solutions. After careful market probing and after an in-depth pilot, Swift decided to move ahead with VoiceSage, on the basis of overall price, basic per minute rate, plus value (the number of call attempts made plus contacts secured).

As well as the functionality offered – another key decision criterion for Swift, after its poor relationship with its incumbent, was the level of service it could expect. “A key thing with any new provider was to ensure it is geared up to properly support us in getting the most out of our system,” Jonathon points out.

The Way Forward

Moving to VoiceSage has meant improved contact rates and cost per contact, by ensuring via the VoiceSage’s verification technology, that Swift’s agents reach the right people, at the right time. “With VoiceSage, we are able to check it’s the person we want to talk to, and they can terminate the call in a way that does not impact on our agents,” Jonathon says.

Swift is also benefitting from other VoiceSage IVM functionality, such as its reverse blind call transfer, a process that saves time and improves service.

Meanwhile, the VoiceSage SMS product, about to be rolled out, will be used for proactive early payment reminders and as a highly efficient method of getting in contact with customers who have missed payments.

And on the service angle, VoiceSage has been very proactive and involved, according to Pearson. “The VoiceSage team has been really keen to make sure we got what we needed and helped us look at making little innovations where we could,” he enthuses.

Delivering Real Results

In bottom line benefits, Swift estimates that using VoiceSage the contact rate for its collections work has doubled, from 1.8% with the previous provider to 4.9%. Also, the cost for engaging with each contact has dropped from £18 to £2, a massive 89% reduction. “These savings reflect the service charge and do not factor in the savings on labour costs – so the ROI is considerable,” notes Jonathon.

What matters most is, he concludes, the fact that Swift’s agents are now only ever “dealing with the people who want to talk to us and engage.”