Green Blog

It seems as though companies all over are “going green” these days and collection agencies have jumped on the bandwagon. Companies such as Pacific Northwest Collections have chosen to dispose of paper files and use a program called Document Locater instead. The new system is beneficial in many ways.

Collection agents now can utilize the document locater to obtain files containing debtor information and are able to use this data to answer their queries over the phone in real time. This is helpful for the company because it is more efficient. Before the shift, payers oftentimes needed to wait on the phone for information, or even for a call back from the collections company.

Being able to quickly retrieve information is a helpful and effeciant way to collect, because contacting debtors may prove to be a difficult task. If an agent does get a payer on the phone, it can be frustrating for them to wait on questions and often times a debtor may not be able to answer a call back from a collections company.

The new system has turned out to be profitable financially as well. With the new paperless system, hours of work are obliterated. No more typing, filing, or copying is neccessary, leaving collectors with more time to get in contact with debtors rather than do clerical work.

The new system also makes the company seem more professional. It may give the impression that a collection agency is uninformed when they cannot access information in a timely fashion. After all, the more creditable an agency appears, the more likely payers are to take the company seriously. Although at first shifting the information to software and purchasing the software itself may be costly, the whole procedure seems to pay for itself. A manager at Pacific Northwest Collections claims that the company saves $2,000 with the new system.

In a bad economy, collection agencies may struggle with retrieving money from those in debt. Companies who are creative and can think outside of the box may very well turn out to be the most successful.

Mallory McGuinness-Hickey is employed by debt collection agency Rapid Recovery Solution and writes free lance pieces on financial news and other subjects.