As the world shifts to more remote work, accounts receivable departments have to shift their collections process to keep up with the new normal. If you are working from home, you don’t want people calling your personal mobile phone. So the question becomes, how will customers contact you regarding their open invoices or questions on their accounts? For collectors, it’s a critical part of the process to have an open line of communication with customers at all times during working hours.
Did you know Lockstep Receivables can integrate corporate phones with personal mobile phones without compromising personal privacy? Lockstep Receivables Telephony integration makes it possible for you to delight customers, scale your collections, and work remotely. The core capabilities of telephony integration are a customizable integrated voice response system (IVR), auto-dialing, and transcription.
The IVR lets customers interact with you through the use of a touch tone keypad on their phones. When a customer calls a centralized contact number, the IVR can use the caller ID to automatically lookup the customer’s account and then provide a summary of the account including last payment and open balance.
The IVR also provides an option to connect the customer with the assigned collector for the account. If the customer chooses this option, the IVR dials the collector’s phone number and connects the call. This is useful in remote work scenarios where the collector may be using a mobile phone number rather than an office phone. Once the collector answers the phone, Lockstep Collect can automatically open the customer’s account page creating a delightful customer experience and saving time for the collector.
Using a personal mobile phone to field calls from customers is not a viable way of conducting business. Using Lockstep Receivables Telephony Integration, your team can still make the crucial phone calls they need while even reducing the total number of calls they have to field by giving a self-service option to customers.
The IVR can perform outbound calls too! Your sequences can be setup to automatically call customers regarding the status of the account based on your business rules and scripts. These outbound calls include the same interactive options as the inbound calls meaning that customers can get account information or connect with the assigned collector immediately.
Auto-dialing is an important time saver and privacy protector for remote work. In Lockstep Collect, any contact that has a phone number can be automatically dialed. By clicking the “Make Call” button, auto-dialing first calls the collector and then dials the customer. At the same time, Lockstep Collect automatically records a note regarding the time, contact, and phone number.
Transcription provides automated speech recognition. With transcription, the entire conversation of the call can be recorded which saves time for the collections team and provides accurate records for future reference.
