Overcoming The Challenges of Email & SMS Deliverability In Collections
In 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued its final ruling on Regulation F. Reg F, as the rule is now referred to, is a collection of laws and regulations on various collections practices including email and SMS communications. Since its full implementation on November 30th, 2021, organizations across the country have been looking for unique ways to overcome the challenges of email and SMS deliverability in the industry.
Remitter, an AI-powered, first-party digital communications and collections platform, has focused heavily on overcoming these deliverability challenges through the use of white-labeled platforms designed to optimize customer engagement, improve collection results, and protect brands while reducing compliance risk and operating costs. But how do you overcome these challenges?
Getting Through the Filter
Reg F changed the collections landscape. While collection agencies spend decades building their call centers, mail channels, and many more traditional communications networks, consumers, within the span of a decade, dramatically turned toward email and SMS communications. One of the biggest challenges with this change is addressing the spam filter.
Every adult is familiar with the spam filter. Almost every modern phone and carrier has built-in filters that will warn you about incoming messages that are most likely spam, not to mention the over 100,000 apps on the Apple App Store that focus directly on expanding and modifying your spam list to limit the number of communications you receive on a daily basis.
Intelligent Outreach
As filters improve, so too will collection agencies or agency support systems. Remitter employs a multipronged technology approach to overcome modern-day email and SMS filters. This approach balances the art of decades of collections experience and the science of new technologies that allow Remitter’s automated systems to overcome filters.
However, overcoming filter challenges starts with intelligent outreach communications techniques. Simple things like avoiding all caps in messages or shortening your subject lines in emails will overcome basic filters but as your agency finds the need to increase deliverability rates or engagement rates, leaning on AI and machine learning tools becomes vital.
AI-driven tools will have the ability to analyze and predict consumer behavior better than any team of data scientists working around the clock. Remitter’s internal processes allow our AI tools to analyze at the individual consumer level rather than at the campaign level. This detail ensures that consumers are reached at their preferred platform, rather than in a phone call that they’ll block immediately upon receiving.
Delicate Balance
Email and SMS communications provide an interesting conundrum. While emailing consumers is vastly easier and has led Remitter to a nearly 100% deliverability rate, engagement on emails is steadily declining as mobile phone usage becomes ubiquitous even amongst those still in grade school.
The balance becomes finding a way to both engage with the consumer on the device they prefer while ensuring the deliverability rates remain the same. Remitter leans on its AI and ML technology to accomplish this task delicately. With each consumer, a new set of data informs Remitter’s AI to hone in on and refine what channel that specific consumer will receive further pieces of content. Whether it’s YouTube, SMS, Facebook, or even something as new as TikTok shouldn’t matter; it’s about understanding the consumer’s engagement patterns and fitting deliverables to match.
Avoid Catch-All Approaches
Working through spam filters is also done through “warming” techniques. Avoid sending millions of communications all at once. Spend the resources and time necessary to “warm” your IP addresses and phone numbers. Focus on authenticating your consumer’s information and sending introductory emails and SMS messages to ensure the deliverability and engagement of your message before you focus on recovery techniques.
When you do finally get to the point where your communications are no longer being ignored or filtered through preset spam filters, it’s time to focus on what matters most—the message you want to send. Ensure that official communications are spelled correctly and accurately, all while having a sense of urgency that the consumer will respond to.
The Frictionless Movement
Remitter is about ensuring frictionless payments for its clients. In turn, this means that Remitter is focusing heavily on the digital optimization of all collection channels, communications, and engagement materials. While collections have typically been accomplished by adding more staff, Remitter is focusing heavily on embracing the digital wave through AI and machine learning technologies.
“There is a new type of customer experience that has to evolve,” says Chris Helten, Chief Technology Officer at Remitter. “In a simple nutshell, we take that information from the client and create engaging email and SMS communications. Our mobile devices are, on average, three feet away from us over 98% of the time. Remitter is embracing that.”
Learn More Online
Visit our website to learn more about how Remitter can improve recovery rates by up to 280% and increase consumer payout by nearly 200%. Our products, Remitter Cure and Remitter Lift, leverage the power of our proprietary AI engine to automate and boost your collection strategy and enhance the customer experience with mobile-first digital technology.
About Remitter
Remitter has operations in the US and is expanding rapidly throughout the Americas. Our service suite offers code-driven compliance while protecting brand reputation and providing a mechanism to scale without adding FTE. The fully automated, mobile-first solution empowers consumers to self-serve with AI-enabled responsiveness creating more favorable customer experiences by embracing consumers on their terms.