How do you keep collections up when contact limits cap how often you can call?

The short answer

When calls are capped, in our view results stop coming from more attempts and start coming from what each attempt and each conversation produces. Three things decide that: which accounts the allowed attempts go to and when, whether the phone data reaches the right person, and what happens once someone picks up.

Your counsel and compliance lead decide how the rules apply to your agency. BestPair does not provide legal or compliance advice, and nothing on this page is legal advice.

What Regulation F says about call frequency

Under Regulation F section 1006.14, a debt collector is presumed to comply with the rule on repeated calls if it calls a person about a particular debt neither more than seven times within seven consecutive days, nor within seven consecutive days after having had a telephone conversation with the person about that debt. Calling more often than either limit is presumed to be a violation. Some calls do not count toward the limits, such as calls not connected to the dialed number and some calls placed with the consumer’s prior consent given directly to the collector.

Regulation F also treats some times as inconvenient. Under section 1006.6, unless the collector knows otherwise, a time before eight in the morning or after nine at night, local time at the consumer’s location, is inconvenient.

State law can add its own rules, and in our experience placement agreements are often stricter than either, so the tightest rule on a floor is often the client’s. Which rules apply to which accounts, and how they are counted, is for your counsel to settle and your own systems to enforce.

Why each conversation counts for more

In our view the seven-day wait after a conversation is the part of the rule that changes the economics most. A conversation that ends without a payment or an arrangement may mean the next call that stays within the presumption is a week away. So the question is no longer only how many people you reach, but what each conversation produces.

That puts weight on three things:

• Who takes the call. In our experience collectors differ most on the conversations that need persuading. Why collectors convert at different rates.
• What the collector can offer on the call. A collector who has to call back with an answer may not be able to call back soon. Your offers stay yours; the point is to give collectors what they need on the first conversation.
• What happens after a broken promise. The follow-up call counts too. Should a broken promise go back to the same collector?

Where results come from under a cap

1. Spend attempts where they reach people. In our view attempts on accounts that rarely answer, at times they rarely answer, use up the allowance without much return. Look at right-party contacts per attempt by kind of account and by hour, inside the allowed hours. How to prioritise account inventory.
2. Fix phone data early. In our experience accounts that sit before anyone checks the number lose contactability, so skip tracing late can cost the best accounts first. How to raise right-party contact rates.
3. Make each conversation count. Put the conversation with the collector most likely to turn it into a payment or a kept arrangement, and give collectors what they need on the first call. More right-party contacts or better RPC conversion?
4. Use other channels within their own rules. Email, text and letters carry rules of their own. Your counsel decides how they apply.
5. Measure per account, not per attempt. In our view, dollars collected per account contacted tells you whether the allowed calls are paying, where dials and talk time only tell you the floor is busy. What counts as success in collections.

Test each change against a control group run in the same weeks, under the same contact rules. How to prove a routing change worked.

Where agent matching fits

Agent matching works on the third point: who takes each conversation. It does not change whether an account is worked or the rules your agency sets. BestPair sends each account to the eligible collector who has done best with accounts like it, from the floor’s own call and payment history, inside the rules and workload limits the agency sets, and measures the result against a control group. Which of your rules apply, and where they are enforced, is agreed with BestPair before anything starts. Agent matching and business rules.

Sources

• Regulation F, section 1006.14: the CFPB’s text on harassing, oppressive or abusive conduct, including the call frequency presumptions.
• Regulation F, section 1006.6: the CFPB’s text on communications in connection with debt collection, including inconvenient times.