Ink on the Interview
Q: You want to give us a quick overview on how Eltropy is helping you out in that area?
A: Eltropy helps with collections in way more ways than we thought it would. I used Eltropy at the previous credit union I was at, and when I started at this credit union, we didn’t have any sort of way to reach out besides just calling the members. So I mentioned it to my supervisor, and then, so we brought Eltropy in.
I now have five collectors that use it, a bankruptcy specialist, and a repo specialist. The number of people we get that respond to Text messages versus answering their phone is absolutely insane. We’ll call them 14 times and they don’t answer, and then send them a Text message and they’re right there to respond.
We were paying a company to call on our lower past due accounts, and instead of that, we now work them in-house from 30 days up, and we have Eltropy in automated Text Messages from 11 to 29 days to all of our members. So as soon as their loan hits 11 days, 19 days, and 29 days, they get an automated Text Message that guides them to our payment portal site.
Q: So, what’s the messaging in the Text that you think prompts them? Obviously a text is a text, but what’s the messaging in there that you think captures their attention?
A: Well, the automated Text is just a quick reminder that ‘Hey, don’t forget this,’ and then here’s another one, ‘Hey, we texted you before. Here’s another reminder to make your payment. Here’s an easy link to get there.’ They don’t respond to those texts, so we don’t deal with a lot of those.
But then, when we start working on them, I actually created some custom Text messages that my collectors can go in and select. We have ones that are, ‘Your account is now over 30 days past due’, ‘Your account is now over 60 days past due. We’re going to be looking at making a decision on your account. Please contact me as soon as you’re able.’
Q: That’ll get a reaction?
A: It does. If we have one we’re looking at for repossession, and they get that Text Message, they’re really quick to call back. Even the ones who won’t answer the phone will send us their debit card information through the link in the Text Message. It’s all secure. We can send the link to them, they send the information back to us—along with any documents they need to see. It’s super.
Q: What was it like before you started using Texting? You said that you could call people all day long and they still wouldn’t answer – can you talk more about that?
A: We also had a prepaid cell phone that I went and got initially, which we would Text our members. It was very inconvenient, but I was trying to prove to them that when I was trying to convince them to get Eltropy that the people would respond better. So they responded to some of that, we had to do it a certain way, very particular with our compliance department. But when I started to show them how often people would Text us back versus answering the phone calls, it made a huge difference. When I first came to Coosa Valley, all of our collections were outsourced. So all of it, every bit of it. So I came in actually as a retail admin assistant and then switched to being a collector, and then was the collections manager, and we brought it all back in-house. It’s taken us a little bit, so now I’m the director of collections. We have it all inside. We do everything ourselves.
Q: In collections, you can be proactive and really help people who are in a challenging situation. That is a big part of Texting because when you call them, they’re not going to answer. So they get deeper and deeper and deeper into their situation with a Text, you can help them get out of that situation and get back on a firm financial footing.
A: Yes, and we came out with a hardship assistance program to help out when everything started going downhill with the economy, and we started seeing people struggling more. So we were like, Well, let’s set something up that’s going to help them. We did that and we offered that to them via Text Message as well, ‘Hey, we see you’ve missed a couple of payments. We don’t see that being done in the past. We have a hardship assistance program we can offer you. If you can give us a call or Text us back.’
I can do all of it. My collectors can do all of it through Text. They can DocuSign the documents over to them. They can get everything worked out – Where does this need to go? What’s your reasoning for this? They can get everything done without talking to them on the phone at all.
Q: Can you share how beneficial it is for the staff?
A: Even where we live, I live in a smaller town. It’s not a super big place. We’re about an hour north of Atlanta, but we’re nothing like Atlanta. It’s a lot smaller. A lot of our people still come to the credit union for that personal experience. Obviously, collectors don’t. We don’t see people face-to-face.
The generation that is falling past due on their loans, the majority of the time, is the generation that relies on Texting. So my collectors sometimes look at birth dates to see whether they need to call first or if they need to just shoot a Text out. It’s a lot harder to get someone from the younger generation to answer the phone compared to someone older who prefers that kind of conversation. But they absolutely love it. I have one collector whose cure rate percentage for collections is probably better than some of the other collectors who call more, and she Texts more than she calls.
Q: What’s on the horizon with this? Where do you see it going, or any plans that you can share?
A: Our marketing department is just about to start using Eltropy for some of the things that they offer and do as well. We’re going to start putting QR codes within the branches. They’ve gotten it hooked up with MeridianLink and other systems. There are a lot of different paths that they’re going down.
I originally brought it in, and we started with collections. Even before it was fully integrated, we were using it as manually as we could, just to get started. Then, once all that happened, they started like, ‘let’s reach out to marketing. Let’s reach out to our local department.’
Q: Anything else you’d like to add to wrap things up?
A: I would recommend Eltropy to pretty much anybody. I went to a conference with TriVerity last year, and there were people asking a lot of questions about who to use for Texting. There were tons of credit unions that had no idea you could even use a platform to Text members. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, you don’t even know what you’re missing out on—let me tell you about this.’ I just want them to be able to use it and have the success that we do.
