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Collection and recovery is a difficult and tedious process, even for the most experienced collections agencies. People dealing with collections often don’t want to be found, and they may try to change their contact information or move around. People may also try to hide assets, or records may be missing or fragmented – making it even more difficult to get a full picture of the debtor and make informed decisions regarding the recovery process. When you don’t have all the necessary information, you end up wasting valuable time and losing money trying to gather it or following dead ends.
While there isn’t one silver bullet solution to the collections process, accessing up-to-date and accurate data in a public and private records search engine is one key way to make the collections cycle quicker and more effective. From the beginning stages to the end, gathering accurate data will help you avoid wasting time and ensure you’re working efficiently as possible – in turn making you more money. Here are 4 tips for how to use data to streamline and shorten the collections cycle.
Skip trace debtors and increase right-party contact
Skip tracing debtors is one of the most difficult steps in the collections cycle, and it is made even harder when a debtor is moving around or actively trying to hide. You also need to be sure you’re contacting the right person so you’re not wasting your time and losing money with outdated contact information, like old phone numbers. In these situations, you need access to comprehensive data that will help you locate and contact a debtor – even if they don’t want to be found.
With the right private and public records search engine, you can not only gather a debtor’s entire address history, but you can also find information about the debtor’s relatives, business associates, and even neighbors. Even if you cannot skip trace or contact the debtor through their direct records, relatives or other people affiliated with the debtor may be able to provide you with valuable insight on the debtor’s whereabouts. You can also use the information provided by these people and fill in missing holes in your records to help ensure right-party contact.
Access accurate and comprehensive data for quicker research
When you’re beginning your initial research on a debtor for collections or repossession, you need to be able to quickly access comprehensive information about the person and be sure you can collect on them in the first place. For example, if someone has filed for bankruptcy or is deceased, you need to know right off the bat so you don’t waste time trying to collect on uncollectible records. You also need efficient research tools so you can gather the information quickly and move on to the next stage of the collections cycle.
With the best public and private records search engine, you can access clean and accurate data quickly and easily to help streamline the initial research process. You can perform a search to see bankruptcy records, deceased records, and real-time incarceration records so you can be sure you don’t spend time trying to collect on someone who isn’t legally required to pay. With Tracers, you can also use API integration to avoid switching back and forth between your software and a third-party searching service, as well as use batch processing to run large amounts of accounts for initial research at once.
Perform debt recovery assessment with built-in data analytics
When you can gather data from a wide amount of sources and compare different sets of data using data analytics, you can make more informed debt recovery assessment. Data analytics allows you to gain a full view of many different accounts so that you can then perform list segmentation and data augmentation and prioritize those accounts that are more likely to pay.
An investigative research software like Tracers that offers big data analytics will help you save time and money by providing you with the comprehensive information you need to make decisions about where to focus your resources. For example, you can pull information from unbanked data sources and utility listings data – which gives you greater insight into a person than that which you can gain from traditional header data – and then compare different accounts and determine which ones to go after.
Gather up-to-date records for better debt recovery
The final stage in the collections process, after you’ve done your initial research, determined which accounts to go after, and located the debtors, is deciding the best strategy for recovering that debt – and this requires being able to gather a complete view of someone’s assets and collectible records.
Using a public and private records search engine, you can get up-to-date property records to help gain a full understanding of the property someone owns, even if it recently transferred ownership, as well as perform an asset search to gain a comprehensive view of someone’s assets such as like vehicles, aircrafts, and more – even if that person has tried to hide them. When you’re able to gather comprehensive and up-to-date data about someone’s current collectible records, you can implement better strategies for collecting on those records, which will help you save time and make more money overall.
If you’d like to see how a public and private search engine can help streamline and shorten your collections cycle so you can handle more accounts, get started with Tracers today.