Cheshire-based ethical debt collection firm, DCBL has won the Best Use of Technology at the Credit Awards 2022 for its partnership with Webio, a leading AI customer engagement solution.
The businesses have collaborated to add easy access to various digital channels, moving conversations seamlessly through channels such as SMS and WhatsApp plus combining e-mail, voice, and dialler into their existing contact centre environment, connecting customers with agents without conversation context loss.
The award-winning transformation of DCBL’s physical communications has resulted in a significant increase in payments, as it continues to lead innovation in the industry. The advancement proves that connecting customers via their preferred channels increases engagement and delivers an improved customer experience and better business results.
This creative innovation allows the contact centre to further support its vulnerable customers via a broader spectrum of communications channels and reduces call waiting times and call abandonment rates improving overall customer satisfaction. In addition, the contact centre agents have the ability to manage multiple conversations at the same time thus ensuring a resolution takes place at the customer’s own pace, putting them at ease. In-message payment options are also offered to customers to further expand the self-service capabilities DCBL offers.
Lee Samuels-Camozzi, Strategy Director at DCBL said: “Winning this award demonstrates our relentless pursuit to innovate and improve customer experience whilst achieving the best outcomes for our clients.
“We constantly innovate our approach to collection and diversify channels of communication to maintain our position as the leading ethical collector in the parking industry. This has a two-fold benefit of maximising our collection rates for our clients and enabling customers to pay their charge as early as possible to avoid further escalation and stress.”
“The latest innovation at DCBL means that we meet a significant proportion of our customers in a place, and communication channel, that they prefer to use. As many as 75% of those under the age of 44 want to communicate by SMS and WhatsApp and that is only increasing as more providers offer message-based communications.”
“After successful trials of QR codes and our new WhatsApp and SMS channels, we rolled it out across our whole suite of clients to further optimise our collections. Of course, we still provide telephone and written channels of communication for those that prefer to contact us this way.”
Mark Oppermann, Co-founder/Head of Sales and Marketing at Webio, said: “DCBL was looking for a cutting-edge technology solution that was agile in its deployment, and we’re pleased to have delivered just that. The project showed a significant increase in early and online payments, as we have been able to reengage customers via new communications channels through our in-depth understanding of the business and their consumers’ needs.”
This unique approach to marrying digital engagement with traditional channels improves customer experience and operation performance. It means that contact centre staff have more time to support vulnerable customers and those that need additional help and guidance in relation to charges.
DCBL is the leading private parking enforcement debt recovery company in the UK and the first choice for high-volume letter driven recovery. For more information visit https://dcbltd.com/.
