18 months ago few would have imagined that a crisis would bring the World to its knees due to a Pandemic. Unlike previous crises where macroeconomic developments played out over a few months, there was a sudden disruption in economic activity as lockdowns were announced. Overnight, it was about prioritizing economic activity over life. However, in most countries, the Pandemic had already caused damage. The industry was unable to function. People unable to move. Healthcare systems were overwhelmed. Emergency Services were called into action.
By mid-2020, it became evident that the World had changed forever. Safety of Employees, Customers and Agents became the priority and determined how business was conducted, as ‘Social Distancing’ became a rule. The norms were simple enough – wear a mask, maintain a safe distance from others, sanitize frequently. These simple norms had a cascading effect, making Organizations’ explore technology to help address the challenges posed by the Pandemic. Digital tools allowed a way to minimize exposure to the virus and for business to persist.
A research conducted by McKinsey points to the shift in preference to transact digitally.
We reflect on some of the ways we helped Financial Institutions adapt and employ new operating models for Customer Acquisition and more so for Debt Recovery.
1. Omni-channel Experience – With Customers, Agents and Staff restricted at home, due to full or intermittent/partial lockdowns, and social unrest, there was a natural progression to interaction over Phone Banking, IVR’s, Online Banking, and a surge of activity over Social Media Channels. ENCollect™ offered this convenience to all the stakeholders without the need for drastic changes in core systems. Pleasantly enough, the levels of efficiency, seamless experience, quick turn-around, and Customer retention this created is now considered a given. ENCollect™ Mobile App led the charge.
2. Remote Working – A game-changer, allowed uninterrupted work. ENCollect™ allowed users, may they be client-facing, back-office, or third-party staff to have all the information they needed in real-time with assigned tasks and a monitoring mechanism. ENCollect™ offered the technology to make the User ‘Feel@Office’ and deal with local internet bandwidth and signal disruption issues.
3. Video Conferencing – The next best to person-to-person interaction. ENCollect™ Video Conferencing proved a great way to bridge the gap allowing Customers and Bank-Staff to get things done, while maintaining ‘Social Distancing’ and still retain the human-to-human interaction. It continues to be a great way to beat traffic!
4. Digital Payments – World over, digital payments have skyrocketed due to the Pandemic. Currency notes and coins have been identified as risks for infectious disease transmission. ENCollect™ offers digital payments through a variety of payment modes allowing the Institution to part collects dues through multiple modes, collecting the last recoverable $.
5. Geo-Location – Locating a Customer, Staff or Agent could never have played a more important role, in the post-Pandemic world. From optimal route planning, navigating through safe-zones, assigning a Customer to nearby Field-Staff or a Customer to a ‘Geo-Safe’ (Safe Cash Collection Points) is enabled by ENCollect™.
6. Electronic Receipts – removes the need for paper or contamination/transmission which accompanies this. ENCollect™ helps eliminate fraud and reconciliation issues.
ENCollect™ has, in many aspects, been a pioneer during the Pandemic. The features can be enabled within days, enabling our customers to continue their acquisition and debt recovery operations, more so, enhance efficiency and results, and important to do this Safely!
Let your Customers, Staff, and Agents know you care for their safety and are an empathetic Lender, one who can be trusted with their business.
Authored by:
Karthik Ramamoorthy, VP, Americas, MEA & South Asia @ Enterprise Tiger and
Mr. Kapil Raghavan, CEO @ Total RegTech Solutions.
We shall share more about how Channel Optimization, Segmentation/Profiling & Predictive Analytics has helped multiply productivity in Debt Recovery in our future updates.
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