Digital communications are a huge part of business and customers expect you to use modern channels like email and text — even when it comes to sending and signing paperwork, or taking a payment. Your company’s communication and esignature software should come with flexible workflow management tools that do everything you need them to, all in one place. This way, …
5 Debt Collection Call Center Script Questions Answered
Most debt collection agencies use collection call scripts but how do you know you’re getting all you can out of yours? We reached out to several experts in the industry for their advice on using call center scripts. They discussed the pros and cons of using call scripts, elements they should contain, and the important link between call scripts and …
Organizational Management: Tools for Better Productivity
Organizational management is a challenge for most small business owners. It requires balancing team management and customer satisfaction while working toward company growth. This often means: Handling client contracts Monitoring payment collection efforts Dealing with compliance issues Keeping up with personnel and administrative tasks Managing other day-to-day office operations What is Organizational Management?Organizational management is the act of planning, organizing, …
Steps to Create a CFPB Complaint Process for Agencies
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is an independent federal agency responsible for maintaining the safety of customers who interact with financial businesses. Because they create and enforce the regulations that govern the credit and collection industry, debt collection agencies know this organization well. But do you know the best way to handle a CFPB complaint about your business filed …
Managing a Multigenerational Workforce: Key Tips
Effective team management transforms your office. It can create an environment where a multigenerational workforce comes together to make a winning team. But managing different generations in the workplace isn’t always easy. A good manager must take into account the backgrounds and experiences each employee brings to their work — experiences that change with every generation.5 Generations in the WorkplaceEach …
Send Multiple Documents in One Request with PDCflow
Transform your company’s document management and esignature processes. Now you can send multiple documents in a single request, saving time and boosting efficiency for your business with PDCflow! Streamline essential business communications — contracts, agreements, payment requests, etc. — to reduce administrative overhead and enhance your customer experience.Benefits of Sending Multiple Documents in a Single MessageMany organizations send multiple documents …
Simplify Operations With Business Process Automation
Do you wish your business could accomplish more tasks with fewer tools and resources? Using business process automation to manage client contracts, customer agreements, and payments will simplify the way you work. Old manual processes slow down operations and make it harder to juggle projects and internal workflows. Embracing business process automation is the best way to speed up deals …
Dispute Resolution Processes for Debt Collection
What happens if the consumer you speak to doesn’t agree that they owe a bill or debt? What if a consumer leaves your company a bad review on the internet? What policies and procedures does your debt collection agency have in place to ensure compliance and a dispute resolution process? In the past, PDCflow partnered to cover a California Association …
Automated Reminders for Higher Open Rates and Engagement
PDCflow is excited to announce Automated Reminders for Flows! Don’t let unfinished tasks slow you down. Use Flow Automated Reminders to keep business moving. Automatically send a follow-up email or text message to customers who haven’t finished your request. This simple feature can: Get 25% more people to complete essential business requests Increase the number of people who open your …
Send Bulk Messages to Scale Your Business
Sending digital communications to customers has a lot of advantages. It’s fast, easy, and creates a detailed record for your company and the recipient. As your business grows, sending bulk messages helps you hang onto these advantages without sacrificing more time and effort. Bulk Message MeaningSending bulk messages means following the practice of creating and delivering personalized messages to many …
Fully Branded Contract, eSignature, and Payment Requests
Increase customer recognition by sending emails and requests that fully reflect your brand. With PDCflow’s latest customization features, your company can send secure communication requests (Flows) and deliver them via emails—all using your business’s verified domain, logo, brand color, and brand statement. Fully white-label the Flow requests and customer emails you send via PDCflow for just $9 per month. Logo: …
3 Proven Tips to Reduce Outstanding Invoices and Avoid Late Payments
Running a business comes with many internal and external concerns, from training and team management to focusing on brand reputation. But if your company has excessive outstanding invoices or delayed payments, cash flow will stall and the health of your business will suffer. Reduce late payments from customers, keep revenue flowing and free yourself up to focus on other aspects …
Guide to Contract Elements for Entrepreneurs
Contracts are essential for companies and customers who need to agree on a deal. But they’re only effective if all the elements of a contract are included in the document. Properly structured agreements protect everyone and withholding elements of a contract could invalidate the deal.What are the Elements of a Contract?Contract elements are the different requirements that make up the …
10 Examples of Great Debt Collection Websites in 2024
In the debt collection industry, if you haven’t updated your website to meet today’s consumer expectations, you’re probably already losing revenue. A user-friendly debt collection website is a necessity if you want to stay competitive and effectively engage consumers. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPBs) Regulation F attempted to clarify many aspects of compliant debt collection like text messaging and …
Skip Tracing Tools and Techniques for Collections
Between 2017-2020, PDCflow partnered with the California Association of Collectors (CAC) to share in-depth advice on running a successful, compliant debt collection agency. The subjects, ranging from day-to-day operations such as best practices for telephone communications with consumers to high-level topics like creating debt collection settlement campaigns, first appeared as the curriculum of the CAC’s Collection Boot Camp courses. Our …
Protect Patient Data with HIPAA Compliant eSignatures
Healthcare organizations that handle patient data must follow strict rules to keep this information private and secure. If you are a medical office, handle medical billing or insurance, or manage health information in any other way, you should already understand what HIPAA compliance entails. But in an increasingly digital world, sending medical records, collecting form authorizations, and other office processes …
Data Protection and Privacy Concerns in the Remote Work Era
This article was originally written by Privacy Attorney, Leslie Bender and published in October, 2020. It has recently been updated and republished. As the number of folks working from home has skyrocketed during the pandemic, the effects of being more digitally connected have been both good and bad. Reports of suspected attacks by cybercriminals to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s …
PDCflow Payment and Communication Solutions Earns CardRates Editor’s Choice™ Award
We are excited to announce our recent feature on educational credit card website CardRates! In the article, PDCflow was recognized with the Editor’s Choice™ Award for innovative payment and communication solutions. PDCflow enables secure document transfers and payments, esignatures, and photo and file uploads. Features are available through our user interface or API integrations, so your company can take advantage …
Team Leadership: Seven Steps to Lead a Winning Team
The California Association of Collectors (CAC) conference and expo held each year in October features some of the best leaders in the credit and collection industry. Many of the sessions center on best practices for successful agencies, but some sessions provide unique advice which can be applied to all aspects of personal, professional and team leadership communication, no matter what …
Common Contract Types for Small Business
Companies have countless interactions with customers, employees, vendors, and stakeholders in the course of business. Any time a company makes a deal with one of these entities, it’s important to use the appropriate type of contract to protect the parties involved. Some business contracts are long and detailed because they need to cover all the specifics of a deal. Others …
Hiring Process Steps to Build a Strong Debt Collection Team
This post was originally written by Mary Shores, agency owner of Midstate Collection Solutions, and was recently updated. It’s no secret that the hiring process has become a challenge in most industries, and the debt collection industry is no exception. We spend time writing job descriptions and interviewing, only for our candidates to change career paths. Or, we choose a …
Navigating Federal and State Call Recording Laws for Debt Collectors
Each year, the California Association of Collectors (CAC) provides insight to debt collection professionals through a series of educational courses. They touched on topics ranging from responding to disputes to tips for creating compliant collection letters, to best practices for handling call baiting. PDCflow has partnered with the California Association of Collectors (CAC) in the past to cover many operational …
Feature Release: Speed Up eSignatures & Payments with Multi-Recipient Flows
Is your business wasting time waiting on approvals and chasing payments? PDCflow’s latest enhancement, Multi-Recipient Flows, simplifies your operations by allowing you to send Flow requests to multiple people at once. Delays in contract signings, payment tracking, and secure document exchanges cost time and money. With this enhancement, our technology now supports: Faster approvals and deal closures: Get esignatures and …
Expert Tips for Creating Debt Collection Letters
Debt collection letters are a central part of a collection agency’s compliance management system. However, the California Association of Collectors (CAC) 2017 Collection Boot Camp panel, Courtney Reynaud, Shawn Suhr, Kelly Parsons-O’Brien (agency owners) and June Coleman (attorney), recognize the potential liabilities inherent in drafting collection letters. Their combined expertise and Coleman’s legal know-how as the CAC’s MAP attorney provided …
Essential Software Features for Digitally Signed Agreements
A signed agreement from a customer is an essential part of many business workflows. With the shift in recent years towards modern tools, more companies are using digital signature software to send and track their signed agreements. Is your company taking digital agreement signatures through email and text for faster workflows and higher customer satisfaction?What is a Signed Agreement?A signed …
How To Create a Credit Policy and Collection Procedure
The blueprint most businesses use to collect on accounts receivable is called a credit and collection policy. The guidelines are typically broken into two sections: a credit policy and a past-due collection procedure. The framework can be as detailed or as broad as is necessary for your office. Providing this direction to your employees is essential. Unfortunately, many businesses don’t …
Digital Contract Management Best Practices
What is contract management? Contract management is the process of managing contract creation, negotiation, execution, and analysis to maximize operational and financial performance at an organization. However, that process will look drastically different for a large corporation with the luxury of a contract management team versus a small business managing contracts with just a few employees. What does contract management …
Guide to Credit Card Chargebacks for Collection Agencies
Every business comes with obstacles. A high-risk operation like a debt collection agency is full of especially unique team management and compliance challenges. Along with industry-specific rules, collection agency owners and managers must also comply with Regulation E, understand PCI compliance rules, and maintain a compliance management system as a whole. While balancing these responsibilities, agencies need to keep a …
Consent Management for Electronic Communications: Best Practices for Creditors and Collectors
Regulation F and reaching consumers through electronic communications is now a reality. Debt collection agencies have prepared as best they can and have implemented new compliance policies and procedures. But what about creditors? All creditor clients that use a third-party agency should know about Regulation F. Are you (and more importantly, are your clients) ready for data maintenance and handoff …
Guide to Emailing Model Validation Notices
If your debt collection agency doesn’t use email to talk to consumers, you’re never going to reach your full recovery potential. Phone calls are less effective than ever in making consumer contacts and traditional mail can be costly. Sending the model validation notice by email: Encourages more consumer engagement Is a compliant option Saves money Is faster than mail Still, …
Frequently Asked Questions on ACH Payment Processing
Offering to accept ACH payments is an effective and low-cost method to enhance convenience for your customers. And, expanding payment processing options to include ACH can significantly increase your business’s revenue. However, on the operational side, processing ACH payments and reconciliation differ significantly from handling credit card transactions. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions merchants have regarding …
High Risk Merchant Account Underwriting: What to Expect
The underwriting process for a new merchant account can be invasive and exasperating for business owners. This is especially true of those in high risk industries like debt collection. Immoral or against-regulation activities by some people in the collections industry have given legitimate agencies a bad reputation. Because of these untrustworthy few, merchant service providers and banks view high risk …
Payment Types and Channels: Pros and Cons for Businesses
Giving your customer more choice and an easy-to-use payment system can remove most of the objections that cause your business to lose out on money. These choices can mean types of payment or a preferred payment channel. Credit card, ACH and cash payment types aren’t enough on their own. Your business should also have: An online payment portal so customers …
Prevent Card Not Present Transaction Fraud and Chargebacks
EMV, better known as credit card chip technology, has revolutionized what it means to take a secure card payment during a card present transaction. The computer chip embedded in many new credit cards makes cloning card data much more difficult, deterring fraud. But what advancements in technology have been created for merchants in a card not present environment? How can …
Accounts Receivable Collections Best Practices: Handling Late Payment Excuses
Every employee will encounter late payment excuses in accounts receivable collections. Greg Ruffino, a successful coach and trainer in the accounts receivable industry, is well-versed in the difficulties a consumer’s payment stalls and objections can cause. Ruffino shared his knowledge on the subject, including common excuses for late payments consumers give and effective debt collection techniques to overcome them.Payment Excuses …
Guide to Friendly Payment Reminders for Better Cash Flow
Payment reminders are the simplest, most flexible solution to reduce late (or delinquent) payments. So why aren’t businesses taking full advantage of this easy, effective tactic? Some business owners are nervous about new software that requires extensive training to launch. Others are still operating on manual or paper reminders that don’t reach customers before their payment due date or come …
PDCflow Releases Text Message Service API
Text messaging with PDCflow has never been better! For two decades, our company has provided compliant, reliable, affordable tools that make it simple to take payments, send documents, get esignatures, and more. Now, PDCflow has enhanced our software to include text message API services. This allows any company to take advantage of our white-labeled texting solution for better customer communication …
How to Plan for Your Best Tax Refund Debt Collection Season
For many consumers, a tax return is the perfect opportunity to take control of outstanding debts. That’s why tax refund season is one of the busiest times of the year for debt collection agencies. Does your agency take advantage of tax refund season to boost revenue and close more accounts? Lots of companies might want to establish a tax time …
Chargeback Prevention Tips for High Risk Businesses
Your staff works hard during the busy tax season and throughout the year to settle past-due accounts and collect payments for your debt collection agency. Without measures in place to prevent chargebacks, though, many of your payments could end up being disputed by consumers. Agencies and other high-risk businesses can go months or years without experiencing the stress caused by …
Maximize Efficiency with Modern Payment Management Software
Payment management software should serve two main purposes for a business – improving a customer’s experience and improving office processes. The right payment management system: Offers multiple easy ways for customers to pay Has intuitive self-serve channels (like online payments) Reduces manual processes for staff Simplifies payment compliance Streamlines payment reconciliation Better CX With Omnichannel Payment Management SoftwareOmnichannel payment management …
A Guide to Lawyer Trust vs Operating Accounts
As a law practice, it’s important to follow rules for how to handle a client’s money. This means keeping funds separate through different lawyer trust accounts and operating accounts. Using multiple accounts to manage these finances can be tricky. It’s essential to have strict financial management practices and payment software that can handle multiple lawyer trust and operating accounts.What is …
A Strategic Approach to Debt Settlement Campaigns for Tax Season
Debt settlement campaigns are initiatives where debt collection agencies offer a discount to consumers to boost collection on old or unresponsive accounts. Tax refund season is the best time to consider a debt settlement campaign within your debt collection agency. A debt settlement campaign can help your agency: liquidate inventory more quickly increase revenue for you and your clients increase …
Switch from IVR Payments and Boost Customer Satisfaction
Interactive Voice Response payments (IVR payments) are a common choice for companies that want to speed up payments and reduce staff workloads. Freeing up employees from menial tasks is the fastest way to optimize your office but is there a better way than IVR? Companies often turn to their IVR systems as a way to take payments over the phone …
Understand and Develop Conversational Intelligence in Debt Collection
“Privacy works flexibly. It’s scalable. And it’s unique to every situation we’re in.” This is a quote from Leslie Bender, Senior Attorney of Health Privacy and Consumer Financial Privacy during her presentation at Collector Live, a yearly event hosted by Mike Gibb of AccountsRecovery.net. The virtual conference for frontline and upper management debt collectors hosted several experts including debt collection …
Why Accept eCheck Payments? How They Work
Does your business still take traditional paper checks? Waiting for payments in the mail makes it harder to reconcile accounts, stalls work, and impacts cash flow. Echeck is a faster, more modern way to take payments. If your company wants to speed up payment cycles and make paying easier for customers, accepting eChecks is the way to go.What is an …
Use Root Cause Analysis Methods to Improve Policies and Procedures
Courtney Reynaud, President and CEO of Creditors Bureau USA, has found success in her agency with careful attention to policies, procedures, and work instructions. But, she didn’t always have such a strong compliance management system. Before her office focused on these practices, she noticed blame would often be placed on a single employee or a client. Reynaud explained that blaming …
How to Use QR Code Payments for Your Business
QR codes are everywhere. They help people look at restaurant menus, access corporate websites, or even make purchases. Since the pandemic began, QR code payment usage has climbed, giving people a simple, fast way to access information or take action. QR code payments are good for more than just retail environments. Many businesses have started to adopt QR codes to …
