The company To Do lists that Collection agency owners and collection department managers are working on is constantly evolving. The projects you are assigned may make you feel overwhelmed and stressed. To add to that stress, you may have a Collection Software provider who isn’t providing the software solution that they promised during the sale nor the client engagement and client success your business requires, which leads to our so-called headaches.

As we relate your headaches to working with your collection software vendor, your headaches could be something that is constantly keeping you up at night. Headaches can be caused by frustrations or a lack of company resources available to assist you. As we dive into this new year, it’s important to do a complete evaluation of your collection software vendor to relieve some of the pressure that may be occurring.

If you haven’t already started, begin to ask the tough questions that need to be asked for potential growth and change to occur. This is extremely important to your business and to your headache relief.

The following questions will be helpful for you to review your current collection software vendor, and one of the two results will occur:

1. Your vendor will take responsibility, improve your current solution, and place an emphasis on customer success.
2. You will need to start looking for a new software solution.

One way or another, something will have to happen. Change is inevitable.

NON-CONTRACTED COSTS & MISALIGNED SOLUTION EXPECTATIONS

1. After we purchased the software system, were there noticeable additional charges that were not mentioned in contract negotiation?
2. Does it feel like my collection software vendor is always charging me for something?
3. Did we receive everything our collection software promised in the demonstration and research stages?

For those who work on the ground floor in collections who utilize the chosen debt collection software on a daily basis, collectors become the champions who know the collection software solution inside and out. Each collector may have different pain points causing their own headaches that you may not be aware of and if you don’t ask the questions, you won’t get the answers. While working in the trenches, have you asked any of your team members the following questions lately, or have they already asked you?

CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING YOUR ENTIRE OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE

1. What parts of the system are not allowing you or your team members to do your job effectively?
2. Are there any key areas missing in the current solution causing restrictions on compliance management, federal and state regulations, and overall business process progress?

CONSISTENT SYSTEM DOWNTIME AND DELAYED OR NON-RESPONSIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE

1. Why do I have unresolved customer support issues from my initial data conversion and go-live?
2. Every time I call for software support, why does it take so long to get a response?
3. Has there been a noticeable consistent amount of system downtime causing us to lose business?
4. Is there unexplained software updates or too much downtime happening?
5. Is our vendor taking accountability for the delays?

While DAKCS Software has been around for over 30 years, we are aware that no collection software vendor is perfect; but we also know your collection software is the backbone to your business success.

Your software becomes the primary tool to pull the data and analytics you need to run your business efficiently and produce results for your clients. With the ability to customize and design the system the way you choose along with integrated tools available for your use, you become your biggest ally; thus resulting in less headaches, greatly reduced days in collections, an increase in cash flow and a stronger ROI. The next set of questions should be asked in order to clearly define the real problem:

QUESTIONS REGARDING VENDOR LONGEVITY, CONTINUANCE, ETHICS AND CULTURE

1. When is the last time I spoke with my collection software vendor?
2. Why is there never any documentation on the items I need help with?
3. Was our team trained on that area of the system? I don’t remember that.
4. Is anyone there? When I call, it’s always voicemails and no answers.
5. How come I never hear what’s happening with our collection software vendor?
6. Was there truth behind the specified client base? Was it smaller than we expected?
7. Did my collection software vendor exaggerate the size of other clients who use the solution to get me to sign the contract?
8. Was there a limited number of clients available for referrals as I looked into collection software solutions?
9. Do any of the owners and partners of my collection software vendor have active or past litigation that would make me question the company and its longevity and ethics?
10. What is the financial solvency of my collection software vendor?
11. Who is trying to collect money FROM the owners of my collection software company?

If you have asked yourself these questions recently and you are still constantly having the headaches, consider collection software migration and start researching other solutions. Contact us at DAKCS so we can provide you with a detailed reference list and assist you on making an objective decision with the most significant part of your business, your accounts receivable management and collection software.

Within the past few years, DAKCS Software and the Beyond ARM solution have helped relieve the intense headaches of numerous agencies. We set extensive and ambitious goals and worked hard to achieve the best results. We took to heart what our DAKCS clients and other software solution clients have said and we are working for a better environment with an even more effective collection software solution.