About Debt Negotiators
Debt Negotiators is an Australian owned company providing confidential, impartial, judgement-free consultation and advice on how to best consolidate debt. They facilitate debt consolidation and grant each client the freedom, control and peace of mind to manage their debts into one easy and affordable payment.
The Challenge
By managing client’s debts into one easy and affordable payment, Debt Negotiators provide their clients with freedom, control and peace of mind. However, one of the challenges that they were facing was finding an efficient and effective way of communicating with their clients that was interactive, immediate and private.
The Solution
After using Act! for a year, Debt Negotiators decided to go through a detailed discovery stage of Act! to try and learn about various additional features and add-ons that may assist them in working more effectively and efficiently. It was during this discovery stage that an Act! Certified Consultant suggested SMS4Act! as up until this point, they had relied on emails and letters in the mail to contact their clients which had proved ineffective.
Adam Ibrahim, Director at Debt Negotiators stated that “Since we started using SMS4Act! it’s been a different ball game altogether. SMS4Act! allows us to efficiently and effectively contact our clients through the system, via a communication channel that works well and that our clients are happy to use.”
By being able to text their clients directly from Act!, Debt Negotiators uses SMS4Act! for a range of messages they wish to send. These include payment schedule updates, updates on the client’s case and also notifications of when a client missed a call and for them to text back a time that is most suitable for Debt Negotiators to contact them again.
A great benefit for Debt negotiators, is that all messages sent from within Act! are recorded against the clients file as well as any replies to these messages. “The financial services industry is highly regulated,” said Adam. “We are audited annually, and we may also face a review if a client makes a complaint about us or our services. If a client claims we have not contacted them, we can prove otherwise as all the history and data is there in the system, and we are able to share this with the third party who is investigating the dispute.”
The Results
Adam Ibrahim, stated that prior to introducing SMS, the company was experiencing a 50-60% non-contact rate for initial calls. Since using SMS4Act!, Debt Negotiators have been able to drop their non-contact rate down to 25%. The increase in initial responses is thanks to their ability to send texts from Act! to potential clients about when the best time to contact them would be.
The system has also been set up so that when an identified field is changed in the database, a customised trigger is initiated sending out a text. “This has saved huge amounts of time for our staff. And our efficiency rate has also gone up, because sending messages from inside Act! is faster and easier. You go to a client profile and in the profile you have access to all the client’s contact information including a full history of SMS sent and received so if anyone else needs the file they can see complete historical data of everything that has occurred with that client,” said Adam.
Act! also compliments Debt Negotiators flexible workforce agreement with their staff. Thanks to Act! their staff never miss a beat as they are still able to message clients from home, the office or wherever they may be. This is extremely efficient and effective for Debt negotiators as it ensures that communication is always present with their clients.
