Can agent matching respect our business rules: caps, state licensing and account ownership?

The rules a collection floor runs

Every floor routes under rules that come before any question of who is best on an account. In our view most floors run some version of these five:

Licensing is the clearest case. California, for example, requires anyone in the business of debt collection in the state to be licensed by its Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, under a law operative from the start of 2022; insideARM’s reminder ahead of the deadline (December 2021) noted that late applicants had to wait for a licence before collecting there.

Regulation F’s call limits are written about the debt collector and the debt, not the individual collector on the phone. Under Regulation F section 1006.14, a debt collector is presumed to comply if it calls a person about a particular debt no more than seven times in seven consecutive days, and not within seven days after a telephone conversation about it, with some calls excluded from the count. Section 1006.6 treats calls before eight in the morning and after nine at night at the consumer’s location as inconvenient unless the collector knows otherwise. Where the information on the consumer’s location conflicts, the CFPB’s commentary says a call at a time that suits every place the consumer might be complies.

Where the rules live

These rules live in the agency’s own systems: the collection system, the dialer and its routing. The agency answers for them. BestPair’s Standard Terms say the agency remains solely responsible for its collection activity, including the FDCPA, Regulation F, the TCPA, state collection and licensing laws, and its agreements with its clients.

For BestPair the answer is short. Which of your rules apply, and where they are enforced (your systems or your dialer), is agreed with BestPair before anything starts, and matching does not change your eligibility rules. The Order Form states the limit: BestPair changes only which agent works an account. It does not contact consumers, and it does not change whether an account is worked, what a consumer is offered, or any collection terms. Skills-based routing vs predictive pairing shows where the two layers meet.

What to ask any vendor

1. Where do our rules live during the test, and who changes them? Get the answer in writing before the test starts.
2. Can an assignment ever reach a collector our rules exclude? Ask what stops it, and who checks.
3. Do calling windows and call-frequency limits stay in our dialer, untouched? What stays the same in the dialer.
4. What happens when a rule changes mid-test, such as a new client team or a lapsed licence? Ask how soon the change takes effect, and whether it lands on both groups at once.
5. Do both groups run under exactly the same rules? If not, the comparison measures the rules as well as the routing.
6. What can we show our compliance team and our clients? Getting agent matching through a compliance review and whether your clients must approve a vendor cover the documents.

Rules and a fair test

A fair test applies every rule to both groups the same way. An account put on hold for a dispute leaves calling in both groups; a licence that lapses removes the same collector from both. Then the difference between the groups is the routing, and nothing else.

In our view, rules also set the size of the prize. Where a rule leaves only one collector able to work an account, no routing has a choice to make. Where the rules leave several collectors on the same kind of account, who works it is a real decision, and it is worth measuring. How to prove a routing change worked sets out the method.

Sources

• insideARM, California DFPI collector licence applications reminder Erin Kerr, December 2021, on California’s Debt Collection Licensing Act.
• CFPB, Regulation F section 1006.14 The regulator’s text of the rule on harassment and call frequency.
• CFPB, Regulation F section 1006.6 The regulator’s text of the rule on communications, including inconvenient times.