Direct Drop Users Speak Out

The potential for lawsuits due to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) has led collectors to search for alternative means to contact consumers. One of the latest solutions is direct drop technology. Direct drop bypasses the phone call to a consumer and drops a voicemail off-line into their voice mailbox providing them an opportunity to contact the collector to settle the debt.

Speaking with the president and founder of the direct drop vendor VoApps, David King expressed his confidence in the product’s ability to deliver a message to consumers while remaining well within legal compliance. Users of VoApps’ direct drop offering, Direct-DROP, expressed their satisfaction with the process and its results. They, however, preferred to remain anonymous.

“I am surprised by the lack of consumer complaints,” said a user of the DirectDROP product at a collection agency. “On a manual cell phone call dialing campaign, consumers would often complain about our collectors calling at an inconvenient time (while driving, while at work etc). DirectDROP alleviates this.”

“I find it to be more efficient; a batch of 40-50,000 voicemails can be dropped at once versus the traditional dialer model,” said another DirectDROP user. “When reviewing the comparison between a successful DirectDROP and the amount of staff and the time it takes to get through the volume; DirectDROP proves to be a successful product.”

The differences can be noticed in the day-to-day operation of an agency that moves from a traditional model of manually dialing cell phones to one that reaches thousands through automation.

“The biggest difference from an operations standpoint is the amount of accounts that we are able to work daily compared to having to hire enough staff to manually dial cell phone numbers,” said a user. “The number of accounts with cell phones represents approximately 54% of our total inventory which without DirectDrop would be extremely difficult to make more than one call per account every 7-10 days by the staff.”

The process of utilizing the DirectDROP service in the collection space was detailed by a user.

   1. We send two types of accounts, new and known cell phones.

   2. We first identify all of the accounts eligible that day and export these to a report.

   3. We then scrub the reports for duplicates and cap at our set limits.

   4. We then send the files to our processor and pick up the results from the day before.

   5. The list of accounts sent and the results from the previous day are imported for data analysis.

The learning curve can often be a deal breaker for an agency. It can sometimes mean days of held up productivity and possible breaches in compliance due to user errors. Therefore a gamble must be made on a new system in hopes that the product and product support come through. A user of DirectDROP indicated the process went fairly well.

“From a programming perspective we’ve had learning curves and a few glitches,” said a DirectDROP user. “But considering what a change this is from every day business, it went fairly smooth. From an operations side, we had to change the workflow of how we work our accounts and the handling of the various result codes that we receive. This was not a difficult task just causing us to think outside of the box to get the most efficient and effective use of this product.”

The flexibility to alter tactics after viewing results is also something important that a collector must be able to do. A user of DirectDROP indicated that changing tactics was possible.

“I was surprised by the overall volume of inbound calls after the first batch was launched,” said a DirectDROP user. “As the process has continued it is obvious that the message will have to be altered because the second and third attempts haven’t been as successful.”

Security in the compliance of the product did not seem to be an issue for the users of this direct drop technology. They expressed confidence that they had found a solution to the TCPA dilemma.

“I really don’t have any reservations as long as the voicemails are dropped within the calling time restrictions across the U.S.”, said a DirectDROP user. “This product is compliant with the TCPA. As the regulations do not change to include this technology, there are no reservations.”