As regulatory requirements change and technology advances, effective skip-jump tracing strategies have emerged. Today, debt collectors can access robust data sources in real-time to enable automated prioritization and collection strategies.
For example, a notification indicating that a consumer is opening a new account or using a new phone number could move them to the front of your queue. You can then contact us by phone or text message with a link to your self-service portal and request to set up a payment plan.
During construction, it is important to verify and continually monitor consumer contact information automated systems
for collections. The same features can also increase your right-party contact (RPC) rate with live agents, emails and physical letters, which is especially important when resources are limited.
What skip tracking solutions might be helpful?
A comprehensive strategy for tracking skippers goes beyond increasing contact rates from right-wing parties. While it's important to have the most up-to-date contact information, you also need tools that can help you Prioritize accounts.
We recommend:
- Phone number ID™ — Clean and evaluate phone numbers based on the probability that the number belongs to the account holder at the beginning of the debt cycle.
- TrueTrace™ — Find new phone numbers with quality ratings.
- Attach email – validate and clean email addresses; Find the latest ones to attach to accounts.
- Collection trigger℠ — Passively monitor accounts for new contact information and changes that indicate a consumer is now able to make a payment.
Let's take a closer look at each one.
Phone Number ID™
This robust contact management process can help you maintain RPC rates and meet compliance requirements. Phone number ID verifies consumers' telephone information in real time, including:
- Subscriber name
- carrier
- Line type
- Activation date
- Whether the number was moved from a landline
For connections to over 5,000 carrier exchanges, the hit rate is 97 percent. If the carriers do not have a name associated with this number, Experian will attempt to identify the owner using its proprietary databases before sending you a complete profile.
Use Phone Number ID to monitor your accounts and serve as a quality checker. You can choose which categories to monitor and receive daily updates if there are any changes.
The phone number ID also provides a match score (0 to 99) based on the probability that the phone number belongs to the correct owner. This score can help you optimize your outbound communications and stay compliant.
For example, even if you have the correct phone number, you can only reach an RPC 15 to 20 percent of the time at best. A high score might tell you that it's worth continuing to contact until the consumer responds.
On the other hand, a low value could indicate that it is a bad number. Maybe you try once or twice but then send it to skip the follow-up and move on if you don't make contact. Additionally, you may want to avoid sending text messages to numbers that have recently been moved or have a low score to reduce the risk of Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) violations.
READ: A digital debt collection future: Maximize debt collection and stay compliant
TrueTrace™ and TrueTrace Live™
TrueTrace and TrueTrace Live are Experian's most powerful location solutions and a successor to Phone Number ID. We've seen TrueTrace increase RPC rates by 10 percent compared to competing products.
The improvement comes from Experian's proprietary matching process and access to multiple high-quality data sources that are updated frequently:
You can use TrueTrace to filter results based on phone number quality and phone type. For example, some collectors use TrueTrace specifically to find high-quality cell phone numbers – competing products may provide any number, regardless of quality or type.
Attach email
Attaching emails is similar to skipping phone number tracking. We may validate email addresses that collectors have in their accounts to determine whether the address:
- Is available
- Contains easily correctable typos
- Is a business email address
You can then clean your accounts to filter out email addresses you shouldn't use. Experian also has access to around two billion email addresses, which are regularly checked for permissions. We can help you find and attach new emails to accounts to improve your digital outreach strategies.
READ: What you should know when adding emails to collections
Collection trigger℠
Collection trigger is a flexible monitoring tool that can alert you to predictive changes in consumer credit profiles and enables a data-driven approach to prioritization.
For example, the daily report could highlight consumers who have applied for or opened new credit accounts or consumers who have paid off or brought current other accounts. These changes may indicate that a consumer's finances are recovering, allowing you to prioritize those who are more likely and able to make a payment.
You can choose from nearly 100 triggers to monitor, including changes to a consumer's phone number, address, and employer.
While consumers rarely update their contact information directly with Experian, we receive new information through established deals and inquiries. By passively monitoring these changes, you can avoid having to repeatedly skip tracking older accounts and minimize lost time.
TIP SHEET: Strengthen your debt collection strategy
Why work with Experian?
Experian has been working with debt collectors and debt buyers for years to understand their challenges and develop effective solutions. We have evolved from omission tracking solutions that relied on physically sending updated reports to collectors to monitoring and verifying information about millions of consumers in real time.
Today we see debt collectors and agencies leveraging phone number ID, TrueTrace, email attachments, and debt collection triggers to develop effective and compliant skip tracking strategies. These cost-effective tools can be easily integrated into existing collection systems. And the results enable companies to optimize and scale operations without expanding their workforce.
Learn more about Experian's skip tracing solutions.
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