After reading a bunch of threads stating how many calls people are getting, I figured I'd shed a little light on the subject.
I used to work for the local cable company....in the Collections department! It was a part time job about 4 years ago. Decent pay..and the perks were AWESOME! This is how we would set up the calls:
Every morning we would be told what category we were working in. This would be either 30 days late, 60, 90, or write off's. This would tell us how much pressure we could put on the customer to get a payment.
So we would sit down behind our computers, log into the automatic dialer application and wait for a high pitched beep to come on in our headsets. This would indicate that the automatic dialer has dialed a phone number and the other end has picked up. Unfortunately, the system at the time wasn't smart enough to determine if it was a real person or an answering machine. This is why you would get a bunch of messages saying "hello.....hello". Once we heard that beep, we had to automatically assume that we had someone else on the other line.
Once we determined it was an answering machine we would either leave a message or hang up. We would then tag the call as "answering machine". If we actually spoke to someone we would tag it as "promise to pay", "not able to pay" etc, etc. This would tell the system how much time it should give before it tried to call again. If we took a payment, the system would take the number out of the call cycle.
Let's say for instance, we whipped through all the calls assigned for that day. The supervisors would go into the automatic dialer application and query all calls that were tagged as "answering machine". He/She would load all these phone numbers back into the system and the whole process starts over again.
So let's take this scenario: You receive a collection call. You answer it and explain that you are in the process of filing bankruptcy, give your atty info and ask not to be called again. The rep on the line would have to document all this info into your account, tag your phone number so that it shows that you are filing bankruptcy and probably do some other paperwork to make sure that you that you don't get called again. Hopefully it works that way.
So now that you did this...a couple days later you get another call...here's why:
Well, while the rep is supposed to be documenting all of this, he/she is losing out on all that other commission that he/she could be getting by making more calls. So he/she decides to just pencil whip it and tag your number as not home or left voice mail. This rep probably will make several hundred calls today, so the chances of you calling to complain and then he/her getting caught taking a short cut is pretty slim. If this happened they could always blame it on a technical error....At which point, your # will be removed from the call cycle and the problem is fixed.
The CC companies probably have a more sophisticated system than the cable company, but I'm pretty sure the operations are the same.
I used to work for the local cable company....in the Collections department! It was a part time job about 4 years ago. Decent pay..and the perks were AWESOME! This is how we would set up the calls:
Every morning we would be told what category we were working in. This would be either 30 days late, 60, 90, or write off's. This would tell us how much pressure we could put on the customer to get a payment.
So we would sit down behind our computers, log into the automatic dialer application and wait for a high pitched beep to come on in our headsets. This would indicate that the automatic dialer has dialed a phone number and the other end has picked up. Unfortunately, the system at the time wasn't smart enough to determine if it was a real person or an answering machine. This is why you would get a bunch of messages saying "hello.....hello". Once we heard that beep, we had to automatically assume that we had someone else on the other line.
Once we determined it was an answering machine we would either leave a message or hang up. We would then tag the call as "answering machine". If we actually spoke to someone we would tag it as "promise to pay", "not able to pay" etc, etc. This would tell the system how much time it should give before it tried to call again. If we took a payment, the system would take the number out of the call cycle.
Let's say for instance, we whipped through all the calls assigned for that day. The supervisors would go into the automatic dialer application and query all calls that were tagged as "answering machine". He/She would load all these phone numbers back into the system and the whole process starts over again.
So let's take this scenario: You receive a collection call. You answer it and explain that you are in the process of filing bankruptcy, give your atty info and ask not to be called again. The rep on the line would have to document all this info into your account, tag your phone number so that it shows that you are filing bankruptcy and probably do some other paperwork to make sure that you that you don't get called again. Hopefully it works that way.
So now that you did this...a couple days later you get another call...here's why:
Well, while the rep is supposed to be documenting all of this, he/she is losing out on all that other commission that he/she could be getting by making more calls. So he/she decides to just pencil whip it and tag your number as not home or left voice mail. This rep probably will make several hundred calls today, so the chances of you calling to complain and then he/her getting caught taking a short cut is pretty slim. If this happened they could always blame it on a technical error....At which point, your # will be removed from the call cycle and the problem is fixed.
The CC companies probably have a more sophisticated system than the cable company, but I'm pretty sure the operations are the same.
Very interesting read.
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