Conversations with SoundBite’s Matt Edmunds

The economy is so vicious that even the debt niche is feeling the crunch.

To deal with this Spandex-tight financial strain, agencies are, and have been, developing and fine-tuning collection strategies. The other day, I spoke with Matt Edmunds, general manager for collections at SoundBite Communications, to gain his insights and observations into what agencies are doing to stay afloat and which of these strategies work best.

An “undoubted lift” for third-party agencies stems from changing the caller ID to a debtor’s local one because the “practice is creating more curiosity in the debtor,” says Edmunds. (Changing the caller ID has gotten a lot of attention on CT.net.  Some members think the technology could lead to legal issues. SoundBite, like other companies, offers this capability.)

Another recession-induced trend? More flexible payment plans.

“A year ago, most agencies would not allow collectors to negotiate a payment plan that took longer than two to three months to pay it off,” Edmunds says, noting that the amount of payment plans has spiked, with agencies now offering more longer-term payment options. This dynamic has also created a shift in operations: Flexible payment plans mean sending out more payment reminders.

Another interesting nugget of information Edmunds revealed is one of SoundBite's technology projects.
It’s “pretty mysterious” to most agencies on how frequently to call debtors while realizing the point of diminishing return, says Edmunds. To try to discover the optimal penetration point, SoundBite is building some automated functionality into its products that will combine call strategy with analytics.

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