Interactions, an artificial intelligence (AI) company, has expanded into the accounts receivable management market with the launch Virtual Collection Agent (VCA).
"In an industry where contact center agents churn 50 percent to 100 percent year over year, there's a big need to transform what those roles look like. Effective conversational AI offers a compelling solution," said Mike Iacobucci, CEO of Interactions, in a statement. "The need for security, flexibility, and compliance in collections has, to date, made digital transformation a challenging process. Each call involves personal financial information and requires compassion and understanding to negotiate debt recovery plans that work for each customer. With 16 years experience creating effortless, human-centered conversational AI solutions, we knew our technology was well-equipped to modernize the sensitive and important process of collecting payments."
Powered by Interactions' conversational AI, VCA is equipped with Interactions' Adaptive Understanding technology that blends conversational AI with real-time human intelligence. It also features automated negotiation, with a customizable negotiation engine that can personalize payment plans in real time. It integrates with key systems, such as outbound dialers, CRM systems, payment processors, and other knowledge bases. Every interaction with VCA is structured to follow defined dialogue flows and adhere to complex compliance regulations and processes.
Collection agency ERC was a launch partner for VCA, which it named EVA. Since deploying EVA, ERC has seen the following:
- a 60 percent reduction in wrong numbers handled by agents;
- a 27percent reduction in inbound calls directed to agents; and
- a 30 percent increase in the probability of speaking with a right party.
"Keeping pace with emerging technologies that help streamline the customer experience has always been a top priority. Over the past few years—and particularly in this pandemic—we recognized that automation was no longer a nice to have in our industry, it was a requirement for addressing demand," said Marty Sarim, CEO of ERC, in a statement. "The response we've seen from both our customers and live agents has been encouraging, and the efficiencies we've been able to build into our business has put us in an extremely competitive position."