Background
Collection Bureau of the Hudson Valley, Inc (CBHV) is a 3rd party collection and debt recovery agency based in Newburgh, New York, which runs campaigns for clients all across the
United States. CBHV has been a Quantrax customer and used their collections management system almost since it was developed in 1990. Running smaller campaigns and dialing in preview mode (a single account being retrieved when the agent is ready and screen-popped for his/ her approval), each agent had his own set of accounts to be followed up, and the system went through them one by one.
Development
During the early 2000s, Sytel and Quantrax worked together to integrate the Sytel predictive dialer with the Quantrax collections software. This involved not only a tight software integration but also negotiation between quite separate systems; Quantrax on the IBM AS/400 (now known as the i5), Sytel on a standard Windows server. In the resulting integrated system, Quantrax would select and manage account records; Sytel would dial, automatically deal with non-live calls and organize retries. This culminated in the 2003 release of the Quantrax dialer platform for collections, featuring the newly integrated Sytel dialer (branded as ‘I-Tel’ for the Quantrax system).
Installation
In 2007, keen to leverage the proven productivity gains predictive dialing can bring,
CBHV decided to take the plunge and upgrade to a new system. Over a period of 4 months, while CBHV continued working as normal, Quantrax built and tested the substantial new system onsite.
Results
Since then, CBHV has enjoyed the benefits of predictive dialing, and have welcomed the ongoing development and additional functionality of the Sytel system. As well as predictive dialing, the Sytel dialer now also provides CBHV with
- Inbound call queuing and routing
- Call recording, retrieval and playback
- Outbound IVR capability
- A scripting tool to both design and run IVR call flows
- Outbound preview calling for particularly sensitive accounts
CBHV currently log 230,000 agent minutes per month, 99% of which is controlled directly by the dialer system. As Collections Manager Debbie DiRubbio commented, “One of the biggest advantages of the new dialing system is that accounts are now dialed for a pool of agents, in anticipation of any of them being available take a live call. This is a far more efficient way to get through our account load – in fact it’s about 4–5 times faster! And having bad numbers, etc., dealt with automatically without even involving an agent makes far better use of our agents’ time.”
Commenting on the more recent addition of IVR capability, Ms. DiRubbio said “Designing IVR flows can be such a pain. The Sytel Scripter product takes a lot of this pain away by providing a visual design tool that provides logical branching, data access and the ability to integrate directly with card payment systems. Now IVR systems can be setup in a fraction of the time it used to take, and updated on the fly. “One of the key benefits of the Sytel Scripter is being able to set up virtual agents and move them around without having to stop and restart the system. This means we can respond quickly to peaks and troughs in demand.” Plus the new IVR system almost doubles our account turnaround. All the automated features allow us to get through more accounts in a shorter time, at the same time increasing our bottom line and allowing us to be very competitive in the marketplace.”
Chief Operations Officer Kurt Najork added “Quantrax have been very responsive to our needs and requests. And when our situation has demanded immediate attention, they have worked closely with Sytel to provide a fast solution.”
About Sytel
Sytel Limited is the world’s leading supplier of predictive dialing algorithms on an OEM basis to the contact centre industry. Sytel Limited is also a leading call center vendor in its own right. It delivers secure, resilient IP telephony and media infrastructure software for carriers, enterprises and hosted contact centre providers, connecting and managing calls and media sessions, without boundary. Sytel solutions provide high-volume routing and media processing on a distributed host-based platform, and are driving inbound, outbound and blended telephony and other media types in over 45 countries. Sytel’s toolsets deliver advanced capabilities to subscribers via the web, including scripting of call processing, real-time reporting and configurable dashboards.