How Your Business Can Leverage AI for Collections

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a huge topic of discussion lately. Rightfully so, as it has the potential to change our world immensely and is already doing so. Rather than watch and wait to see its impact, many businesses are jumping on the opportunity to harness its power and potential.

Here are several ways your business could leverage AI for the collections process:

Communication

Your business can use AI through chatbots and automated emails during the first stage of the collections process, which is first-party collections carried out by your business. It’s best to start here and try to see results before sending the case to a third-party collections company like Aldous & Associates.

First, reach out to the delinquent accounts and be available for their response. Through communication, you can gain an understanding of the problem, remind the person about the lack of payment and hopefully get a beneficial response.

Automated Messages

AI automated emails and texts make it easy for your business to follow a set process for delinquent accounts. Once you have these messages set up, they are automatically sent out when a case becomes delinquent, so they require no extra work from your staff to send them.

These emails can follow your first-party collections process, including:

• Send a reminder of non-payment, including relevant information
• Remind again of the non-payment, including benefits of the business the account is now missing out on and solutions for resolving the situation
• Give a warning that the member’s case will be sent to third-party collections if the person has not paid or responded by a certain date

Chat Bots

AI chatbots are helpful when accounts reach out to your business when your staff is unavailable. Imagine if a account takes the step to make a payment, but no one answers the phone. This is just one example of how your business could be unavailable when someone attempts to respond in regard to their situation.

But, if you have chatbots available to respond to the person during after-hours or when staff members are unable to communicate, you have a better chance of staying in touch, resolving the situation, and keeping the account. You’ll give the account a better experience and help them feel seen and heard rather than ignored or feeling like they’re only good for their wallet.

Optimization

Timing Strategies

Focus on using AI to determine the best days and times to communicate collections. For instance, AI can track when people open their emails, which might help your business target the best times to get an email in front of delinquent members.

Targeted Content

Another use of AI is to optimize content. For instance, AI technology can help your team create the best possible email subject lines and content to get great open rates and click-through rates. Of course, this feature can be helpful for general marketing. Yet, it’s also helpful during the collections process as it increases the chance members will actually open the follow-up emails you send them and then click through to the next step, such as transferring them to an online place to make a payment.

While businesses rely on an in-person model that can’t entirely be run by AI, they can balance AI with the human touch of employees, which is probably the best way to rely on AI into the future. Has your gym started to incorporate AI technologies? Reach out and let us know how.