Description
Speech Analytics Providing the Business Intelligence to Win in a Downturn Economy
With the recent downturn in the
economy, there is far more debt to
recover, yet the capability of the indi-
vidual to repay has been signi?cantly
diminished. Debt collection agencies
are faced with the prospect of aging
debt on their books, and the debt
collection arena is becoming far more
competitive as agencies compete for
the same business. The need to reclaim
at least part of the outstanding debt
from each customer and help them
sort their debt issues is becoming
very important.
APEX Credit Management is a specialist
organization providing credit manage-
ment, debt collection and debt
purchasing services. The company
has grown over the last 10 years and
is now ranked within the UK’s Top 10
Debt Collection Agencies.
THE CHALLENGE
Steve Mound, Chief Operating Of?cer
at Apex states, “With the signi?cant
downturn in the economy and its
impact on people’s ability to repay, we
realized quite early that we needed to
optimize our processes and boost our
collections revenues. Our goal is to be
recognized as the leading ethical debt
management provider in the UK, and
as such, we are proactively looking for
ways to improve our service. Speech
analytics has provided us with a major
opportunity to do just that, signi?cantly
building our competitive advantage.”
The company prides itself on its fresh
approach to debt management with its
highly trained UK team, state of the art
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
Speech Analytics: Providing the Business
Intelligence to Win in a Downturn Economy
A Case Study by Nexidia
technology and its real commitment
to help people resolve past credit
dif?culties. APEX clients include some
of the largest global blue chip, banking
and public sector organizations. Last
year, the company was awarded Debt
Purchaser of the Year by Credit Today,
the UK’s leading commercial and
consumer credit magazine. APEX was
also recognized as ‘One to Watch’ in
The Times ‘Top 100 Best Companies
to work for.’
Facing an increasingly regulated envi-
ronment and the need to demonstrate
compliance, one of the company’s key
roles is to protect the reputation of its
clients. In addition to the need to
operate ef?ciently, APEX also needs to
maximize collected revenues. With more
than 380 hours of talk-time per day,
the company realized that their current
sampling of a limited number of calls
per agent per month wasn’t giving them
true visibility of what was happening in
their front line interactions.
Richard Furlong, Contact Strategy
Manager, adds, “In the debt collection
industry, the real challenge is to under-
stand what is happening at the point of
interaction between the customer and
the agent. How many Promise-to-Pays
(PTPs) are actually being asked for?
How many full balances are actually
being requested? Are key compliance
phrases being used by the agents? Our
random sampling was only allowing us
to understand about 1% of our calls.
This made it extremely dif?cult to
pinpoint what changes were needed to
improve services.”
THE SOLUTION
Nexidia’s speech analytics technology
analyzes 100% of recorded calls to
quickly extract accurate business
intelligence. Richard continues, “The
free Proof of Concept (POC) was very
attractive to us. Nexidia took 2,000
hours of audio and clearly identi?ed
speci?c processes that were having a
major impact on our ability to collect
revenues. It highlighted a signi?cant
revenue opportunity for us, outlining
exactly how many payment attempts
were being made, the high percentage
of calls over ?ve minutes, and the
number of calls with compliance issues.
Some of the results caused us to re?ect
on our processes. There were areas
where we thought we were performing
well, which when analyzed, showed
major discrepancies. Our challenge was
to focus on the actions that would give
us the biggest immediate returns. In
this business it’s hard enough getting
in contact with people, so it’s vital that
we make the most of each call and
Nexidia is enabling us to do just that.”
CHAMPION CHALLENGE
In order to accurately evaluate the
effectiveness of the solution, APEX set
up the Champion Challenge. An existing
high performance team called the
“Champions” was measured against
the “Challengers.” The Challengers was
a new team with comparable skills and
length of service, but was managed
closely using speech analytics. Both
teams were measured against conversion
rates, cash collected, call audits and
other factors.
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
APEX Credit Management, Ltd.
The Challenger team initially focused
on increasing the number of calls in
which a full balance was requested,
as this had been identi?ed as an area
needing improvement. However, this
understandably caused a spike in hang
ups. So a new strategy was quickly
developed to concentrate on ‘missed
opportunities,’ utilizing the daily data
extracted from speech analytics to focus
on all relevant Right Party Contact
(RPC) calls. After three weeks, the
conversion rates of RPCs to Promise-
to-Pays increased in the Challenge
team, and continued to rise month
after month far above all other teams.
In the ?rst month, four agents signi?-
cantly improved, and by the end of the
Champion Challenge, all 10 had made
signi?cant progress. Speech analytics
has now been rolled out across the
company, resulting in a 4% rise in
conversion rates across the business
in the ?rst month alone.
INCREASING REVENUES COLLECTED
Steve Mound comments, “We are
halfway through implementing some
of the key changes and are well on
our way to achieving the substantial
bene?ts identi?ed in the POC. In six
months we’ve increased conversion
rates by 15%. Plus, our increased rate
of Promise-to-Pays has driven up cash
collected per agent hour by 30% over
the same period. These results are in
stark contrast to the market downturn
with its diminishing returns.”
Implementing Nexidia speech
analytics was the ?nal task of a
business restructuring which included
the implementation of a SAS system
to control contact strategies based on
previous call experience. This provided
information into the Noble Systems
Dialler about who to call and how
often. Nexidia speech analytics works
with the Noble predictive dialler to
document Right Party Contacts and
analyze each call to extract detailed
customer information, which is
invaluable for further action.
COMPLIANCE & COMPLAINTS
While increasing revenues collected
on behalf of clients is crucial, Nexidia
speech analytics has also enabled
APEX to demonstrate regulatory com-
pliance on 100% of its calls. The abil-
ity to access the actual spoken word of
all agents—and correct as necessary—
has dramatically improved compliance.
The company strives to meet the many
regulatory guidelines, including the
Of?ce of Fair Trading, Debt Collection
Guidelines, Credit Services Association
and Debt Buyers and Sellers Guidelines,
as well as the Data Protection Act.
Initially the focus of the project was to
concentrate on increasing collections
revenues. However, the management
information created has been invaluable
throughout the company. The legal
department, tracing department and
the complaints teams have all had
access to great effect. Complaint
enquiries previously took up to two
weeks to extract all relevant customer
calls, but can now be pulled together
in about 10 minutes. This saves huge
amounts of time and effort, and
enables a more immediate response
back to the customer.
FAIR PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
Having the detailed calls analysis
delivered to the Team Manager’s
desktop each morning has dramatically
reduced the hours spent searching for
relevant calls to audit. Information is
now available at the click of a button.
Each manager has saved nearly 30
hours a month that was previously spent
listening to calls. These hours are being
reinvested in 50% more time spent in
weekly coaching and auditing of agents.
Also, with 100% of agent calls being
reviewed, coaching and mentoring
is now far more targeted. The team
manager is able to focus on speci?c
issues to help individuals build skills
and con?dence. In turn, the agents
appreciate the fair performance review
and targeted coaching, which ultimately
helps them achieve bonus.
Julie Wilde, the Challenge Team
Manager, states, “Previously, most of
my time each month was spent looking
for ?ve calls to audit for each of my 10
agents. Now I’m able to spend far more
structured coaching time with each
agent on a regular basis, which has
developed a great team spirit. Previously,
they mainly worked on their own, but
now they feel more valued and proud
to be members of a successful team.
Audit scores have also jumped by 20
to 30% over the same period.” During
the six month pilot, the Challenge team
demonstrated the lowest attrition rate
in the business.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Steve Mound continues, “Nexidia has
been an excellent partner to work with.
They have combined their technical
expertise with our knowledge of the
collections market and its systems to
produce a solution that is delivering
major bene?ts, and will uncover new
innovative approaches for many years
to come. They have always delivered
on their promises. The product ‘does
what it’s says on the tin.’ It is now fully
embedded as part of our total solution
to the market, which is attracting some
notable attention from both existing
and new clients.”
Speech analytics has given APEX a
competitive edge by providing insight
into all collector calls and activity. It
has enabled the company to enhance
performance and deliver an improved
service to clients in a contingent
business environment.
Nexidia – Headquarters +1 (866) 355 1241
3565 Piedmont Road NE, Building Two, Suite 400, Atlanta, GA 30305, USA
Nexidia – UK +44 (0)20 8973 2440
Gainsborough House, 2 Sheen Road, Richmond TW9 1AE, United Kingdom
nexidia.com
© 2010 Nexidia Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Nexidia products are protected by copyrights
and one or more of the following United States patents: 7,231,351; 7,263,484; 7,313,521; 7,324,939; 7,406,415 and other patents pending.
doc_130187086.pdf
Speech Analytics Providing the Business Intelligence to Win in a Downturn Economy
With the recent downturn in the
economy, there is far more debt to
recover, yet the capability of the indi-
vidual to repay has been signi?cantly
diminished. Debt collection agencies
are faced with the prospect of aging
debt on their books, and the debt
collection arena is becoming far more
competitive as agencies compete for
the same business. The need to reclaim
at least part of the outstanding debt
from each customer and help them
sort their debt issues is becoming
very important.
APEX Credit Management is a specialist
organization providing credit manage-
ment, debt collection and debt
purchasing services. The company
has grown over the last 10 years and
is now ranked within the UK’s Top 10
Debt Collection Agencies.
THE CHALLENGE
Steve Mound, Chief Operating Of?cer
at Apex states, “With the signi?cant
downturn in the economy and its
impact on people’s ability to repay, we
realized quite early that we needed to
optimize our processes and boost our
collections revenues. Our goal is to be
recognized as the leading ethical debt
management provider in the UK, and
as such, we are proactively looking for
ways to improve our service. Speech
analytics has provided us with a major
opportunity to do just that, signi?cantly
building our competitive advantage.”
The company prides itself on its fresh
approach to debt management with its
highly trained UK team, state of the art
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
Speech Analytics: Providing the Business
Intelligence to Win in a Downturn Economy
A Case Study by Nexidia
technology and its real commitment
to help people resolve past credit
dif?culties. APEX clients include some
of the largest global blue chip, banking
and public sector organizations. Last
year, the company was awarded Debt
Purchaser of the Year by Credit Today,
the UK’s leading commercial and
consumer credit magazine. APEX was
also recognized as ‘One to Watch’ in
The Times ‘Top 100 Best Companies
to work for.’
Facing an increasingly regulated envi-
ronment and the need to demonstrate
compliance, one of the company’s key
roles is to protect the reputation of its
clients. In addition to the need to
operate ef?ciently, APEX also needs to
maximize collected revenues. With more
than 380 hours of talk-time per day,
the company realized that their current
sampling of a limited number of calls
per agent per month wasn’t giving them
true visibility of what was happening in
their front line interactions.
Richard Furlong, Contact Strategy
Manager, adds, “In the debt collection
industry, the real challenge is to under-
stand what is happening at the point of
interaction between the customer and
the agent. How many Promise-to-Pays
(PTPs) are actually being asked for?
How many full balances are actually
being requested? Are key compliance
phrases being used by the agents? Our
random sampling was only allowing us
to understand about 1% of our calls.
This made it extremely dif?cult to
pinpoint what changes were needed to
improve services.”
THE SOLUTION
Nexidia’s speech analytics technology
analyzes 100% of recorded calls to
quickly extract accurate business
intelligence. Richard continues, “The
free Proof of Concept (POC) was very
attractive to us. Nexidia took 2,000
hours of audio and clearly identi?ed
speci?c processes that were having a
major impact on our ability to collect
revenues. It highlighted a signi?cant
revenue opportunity for us, outlining
exactly how many payment attempts
were being made, the high percentage
of calls over ?ve minutes, and the
number of calls with compliance issues.
Some of the results caused us to re?ect
on our processes. There were areas
where we thought we were performing
well, which when analyzed, showed
major discrepancies. Our challenge was
to focus on the actions that would give
us the biggest immediate returns. In
this business it’s hard enough getting
in contact with people, so it’s vital that
we make the most of each call and
Nexidia is enabling us to do just that.”
CHAMPION CHALLENGE
In order to accurately evaluate the
effectiveness of the solution, APEX set
up the Champion Challenge. An existing
high performance team called the
“Champions” was measured against
the “Challengers.” The Challengers was
a new team with comparable skills and
length of service, but was managed
closely using speech analytics. Both
teams were measured against conversion
rates, cash collected, call audits and
other factors.
CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
APEX Credit Management, Ltd.
The Challenger team initially focused
on increasing the number of calls in
which a full balance was requested,
as this had been identi?ed as an area
needing improvement. However, this
understandably caused a spike in hang
ups. So a new strategy was quickly
developed to concentrate on ‘missed
opportunities,’ utilizing the daily data
extracted from speech analytics to focus
on all relevant Right Party Contact
(RPC) calls. After three weeks, the
conversion rates of RPCs to Promise-
to-Pays increased in the Challenge
team, and continued to rise month
after month far above all other teams.
In the ?rst month, four agents signi?-
cantly improved, and by the end of the
Champion Challenge, all 10 had made
signi?cant progress. Speech analytics
has now been rolled out across the
company, resulting in a 4% rise in
conversion rates across the business
in the ?rst month alone.
INCREASING REVENUES COLLECTED
Steve Mound comments, “We are
halfway through implementing some
of the key changes and are well on
our way to achieving the substantial
bene?ts identi?ed in the POC. In six
months we’ve increased conversion
rates by 15%. Plus, our increased rate
of Promise-to-Pays has driven up cash
collected per agent hour by 30% over
the same period. These results are in
stark contrast to the market downturn
with its diminishing returns.”
Implementing Nexidia speech
analytics was the ?nal task of a
business restructuring which included
the implementation of a SAS system
to control contact strategies based on
previous call experience. This provided
information into the Noble Systems
Dialler about who to call and how
often. Nexidia speech analytics works
with the Noble predictive dialler to
document Right Party Contacts and
analyze each call to extract detailed
customer information, which is
invaluable for further action.
COMPLIANCE & COMPLAINTS
While increasing revenues collected
on behalf of clients is crucial, Nexidia
speech analytics has also enabled
APEX to demonstrate regulatory com-
pliance on 100% of its calls. The abil-
ity to access the actual spoken word of
all agents—and correct as necessary—
has dramatically improved compliance.
The company strives to meet the many
regulatory guidelines, including the
Of?ce of Fair Trading, Debt Collection
Guidelines, Credit Services Association
and Debt Buyers and Sellers Guidelines,
as well as the Data Protection Act.
Initially the focus of the project was to
concentrate on increasing collections
revenues. However, the management
information created has been invaluable
throughout the company. The legal
department, tracing department and
the complaints teams have all had
access to great effect. Complaint
enquiries previously took up to two
weeks to extract all relevant customer
calls, but can now be pulled together
in about 10 minutes. This saves huge
amounts of time and effort, and
enables a more immediate response
back to the customer.
FAIR PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
Having the detailed calls analysis
delivered to the Team Manager’s
desktop each morning has dramatically
reduced the hours spent searching for
relevant calls to audit. Information is
now available at the click of a button.
Each manager has saved nearly 30
hours a month that was previously spent
listening to calls. These hours are being
reinvested in 50% more time spent in
weekly coaching and auditing of agents.
Also, with 100% of agent calls being
reviewed, coaching and mentoring
is now far more targeted. The team
manager is able to focus on speci?c
issues to help individuals build skills
and con?dence. In turn, the agents
appreciate the fair performance review
and targeted coaching, which ultimately
helps them achieve bonus.
Julie Wilde, the Challenge Team
Manager, states, “Previously, most of
my time each month was spent looking
for ?ve calls to audit for each of my 10
agents. Now I’m able to spend far more
structured coaching time with each
agent on a regular basis, which has
developed a great team spirit. Previously,
they mainly worked on their own, but
now they feel more valued and proud
to be members of a successful team.
Audit scores have also jumped by 20
to 30% over the same period.” During
the six month pilot, the Challenge team
demonstrated the lowest attrition rate
in the business.
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Steve Mound continues, “Nexidia has
been an excellent partner to work with.
They have combined their technical
expertise with our knowledge of the
collections market and its systems to
produce a solution that is delivering
major bene?ts, and will uncover new
innovative approaches for many years
to come. They have always delivered
on their promises. The product ‘does
what it’s says on the tin.’ It is now fully
embedded as part of our total solution
to the market, which is attracting some
notable attention from both existing
and new clients.”
Speech analytics has given APEX a
competitive edge by providing insight
into all collector calls and activity. It
has enabled the company to enhance
performance and deliver an improved
service to clients in a contingent
business environment.
Nexidia – Headquarters +1 (866) 355 1241
3565 Piedmont Road NE, Building Two, Suite 400, Atlanta, GA 30305, USA
Nexidia – UK +44 (0)20 8973 2440
Gainsborough House, 2 Sheen Road, Richmond TW9 1AE, United Kingdom
nexidia.com
© 2010 Nexidia Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Nexidia products are protected by copyrights
and one or more of the following United States patents: 7,231,351; 7,263,484; 7,313,521; 7,324,939; 7,406,415 and other patents pending.
doc_130187086.pdf