I am a start-up debt collection company. I was going to go with ring central for my calling needs and Global Connect for my broadcast and IVR needs. However, I am interested in knowing how your products can benefit my agency.

One main benefit you can get from using Voicent software is huge cost savings in phone bills. Voicent software allows you to choose any VOIP service provider or SIP trunk provider, which usually offer lower rates than the rates provided by a hosted voice broadcast and IVR company. For most debt collection companies which have large call volume, the cost saving in phone bill adds up quickly month over month.

I am big on automation. Can you integrate with my debt collections software (Collector Express by Columbia Ultimate)? Can your IVR integrate w/ my payment gateway service (eft network) for payments over the phone? I dont want to have to manually input debtor information in order to build a call campaign. Can your products help and if so which ones?

Automation is actually another major benefit of using Voicent software than a hosted solution. This is because:

1. Voicent software is installed on your site and can be seamlessly integrated with your existing IT environment
2. Integration is easier with native software than hosted/browser based software
3. Voicent software provides extensive integration APIs, such as web based and command line based APIs

For most of our debt collection agencies, they use Voicent software in the following way:

Use Voicent BroadcastByPhone autodialer for calling debtors. The software has a spreadsheet like interface and you can easily copy-paste or import your call list. We are not familiar with Collector Express, but most software should have export function to produce a call list, so there will be no manual input in order to build your call campaign. 2 call messages are usually built, one for a message for anwering machine and the other for live pickup. In the message, for example, you can refer to the dollar amount for collection, so each message is personalized. For live pickup, you set press 1 to get call transferred (to a live agent or your inbound IVR application).

You could have the call transferred to an agent’s desktop computer instead of a phone. This should save you phone cost, but most importantly, it allows the agent, from the screen popup, to see who is on the line and see other information about the debtor. The agent can then talk to the debtor using a computer headset. In addition to the screen popup, you can also perform certain operations automatically whenever a call is finished. For example, you can design and call a script to update the Collector express database (if it has command line or other programming interface).

Use Voicent IVR Studio for inbound IVR or outbound IVR. With IVR Studio and using the built-in operations, you can easily integrate phone calls with email servers, database servers, web servers, and other software. In fact, you can build almost any IVR applications you desire using these operations. For payment gateway which normally provides a web (HTTP) based API, you can use the HTTP action in IVR Studio. A possible voice interaction can be the IVR system asks the debtor to input his credit card number, expiration date, confirm the collection amount, then send this information to the payment gateway; process the payment gateway return status, and then prompt the debtor for further actions.

We recommend you download the free trial software and give it a try. The best place to start is to select Help > Product Walkthrough from the program main menu.