Free Report: Ten Tips for Choosing a Collections Platform

Choosing a technology platform for a collection agency is a bit like choosing a cable provider for your household. You want it, you need it, you can buy from various providers, and those providers offer a dizzying array of choices, configurations, and plans. So how do you make an educated decision about what’s best for your particular needs?

Price? Features? Systems compatibility? All of these factors are important, but despite conventional sales pitches, they’re actually “secondary” concerns. If that sound like blasphemy to you, consider this: one of the primary get-you-to-buy spiels of those cable, TV and, Internet bundles from Verizon FIOS or Comcast XFINITY is that they promise 900 channels and 10 million movies on demand. What all that high-flown talk conveniently forgets to remind you is that there are only 720 hours in a month. Subtract working, sleeping, eating, walking the dog and time with your kids and how many episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent can you really watch in a month? The key to making an intelligent decision about something low-stakes (like cable TV) or something of vital business importance (like a collections platform) is answering the big questions few sales people want to discuss with you.

A new free report by CR Software published on insideARM.com will help you determine the major questions you should ask before making a decision on a new collections platform. What’s key is asking the questions that give you the ability to accurately compare platforms–before you ever get bogged down in a sales pitch.

For example, some vendors offer free licenses or platform, giving you the impression the cost of the new platform is much lower than another provider with a higher up-front cost. Behind those two choices lurks a stark reality: after just a short time period, custom programming, integrations, transaction costs, maintenance and support fees turn the low up-front cost into a distant memory, followed by years of dramatically bigger monthly costs. Transaction fees alone can cost many thousands of dollars each year.

In Ten Things Vendors Won’t Tell You in the Collections Platform Selection Process, you’ll learn:

• Integrations are key. Put this at the top of your list.
• Communicate your reporting needs, and understand the tools you get to create reports yourself.
• Define Your Infrastructure
• List and Description of Custom Development
• Describe Month-End Requirements for Clients and Vendors
• Beware of Data Extract Costs
• Understand Regulatory and Legislative Requirements
• Document Manual and Automated Processes Performed by Your SMEs
• Do you Need an Exit/Roll-Back Strategy for Your Legacy System?
• Don’t Forget about an Escrow Account.

Let’s be honest: for most collection agencies a collections platform is not only a significant expense, it’s also a fundamental part of your operational success. Choosing a platform–or changing platforms–can seem like a daunting task. But understanding the correct questions to ask (by pulling back the curtain) will make your decisions both smarter and decidedly less scary.

Download your free copy of  Ten Things Vendors Won’t Tell You in the Collections Platform Selection Processtoday.

Michael Klozotsky is the Chief Content Officer at insideARM.com. Follow him on Twitter @mklozkgc.