CUSTOMER SUCCESS:

Soft Collection

Outbound and inbound Collections for the deregulated affiliate of a Midwestern utility, Soft Collections for a Flat Bill Program.

Outcome
Over a four-month period CustomerLink collected over $1.2 million for this energy client and retained 5,207 customers on their program. CustomerLink continues to collect an average of $12,500 every day.

The Challenge
Due to the huge success of CustomerLink’s fixed bill sales efforts for this client, the program outgrew our client’s internal resources to keep up with the collection and retention efforts. Therefore, the client’s debt load and customer drop-off due to non-payment was increasing unnecessarily. Together, CustomerLink and the client created a solution to enhance the existing credit collection efforts, and improve retention in the fixed bill program.

The Solution
Inbound Credit and Collection Calls
Since CustomerLink was already knowledgeable of the client’s product and processes, CustomerLink was the most natural, likely channel to provide a quick solution with a high return on investment.

Knowing customers would be removed from the program should they not pay their bill by day 60, and knowing that the longer time that goes by without a payment the less likely that payment will actually be received expands exponentially, the following actions were taken.

Customers were sent a letter at the 38-day mark with a friendly reminder to pay and a toll-free number to call with questions. CustomerLink handled the calls, answered inquiries, and collected payments.

Customers who had not responded to the letter by day 45 were given a pro-active outbound call.

If we were unable to reach those customers, CustomerLink made another scheduled outbound calling effort at the 57-day mark, just prior to cancellation. Using that as a sense of urgency, CustomerLink was able to secure payment and retain the customer.

When contact was made, payment information was obtained from the customer, or the customer was encouraged to pay within 10 days, or face cancellation from the program. Follow-up calls were made if payment was not received within this 10-day period.

CustomerLink collected the customer payment information and forwarded it to the client daily. CustomerLink updated the client's database with detailed notes from conversations with the customer.

After 80 days of non-payment the customer was finally removed from the program. At that point the case was referred to a collection agency for follow-up.

The Results

Over a four-month period CustomerLink:

• Handled over 7,000 inbound calls resulting in nearly $700,000 and 2,440 retained customers.
  
  
• Placed over 50,000 outbound calls resulting in nearly 5,000 presentations, which in turn resulted in over $550,000 and 2,767 retained customers.
  
  
• Ultimately, CustomerLink was directly responsible for delivering over $1.2 million to our client and retaining 5,200 of their customers.

During outbound calling:

• 75% of all collections were secured within the first 5 attempts
• 15% in the following 5 attempts or within 10 attempts
• Only 10% of the collections were made after the 10th attempt