Debt Collection software + Vicidial integration

[Devilish]

Hello,

I'm currently in the Philippines and launching a collection wing. We're a microlending organization that is looking to tackle collection as well. As of now, our collection team is comprised of 3 officers.

My main requirement is to use Vicidial for predictive dialing with options to turn on voice broadcasting for clients set for specific hours. As of now, we do not have a collection software - so I'd like to see a proposal that shows collection software that integrates well with vicidial. Ofcourse, since we're a startup - we'd like this software to be affordable and packs a punch! This software might also have API functionality so we can interface it with our CRM (Zoho) in the future.

If possible, we have an SMS broadcasting provider who has an API that we would like to connect Vicidial into and allow for SMS'ing defaulters.
That is the solution aspect.

Below is the requirement itself:
Being in the Philippines, we do not have need for SAS70 or any such compliances - this removes the barrier of entry and allows us to encourage affordable software that works well with vicidial.
We will be calling the borrower, the co-borrower (if any), and their contacts they have listed during application process. Each of these records have multiple phone numbers (mobile1,mobile2,home,work,etc) - so sufficient logic for these will need to be included. If borrower and contacts begin to ignore our calls, logic for SMS and voice broadcasting at hours when reach is good would be ideal.

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I'd like to request the attention of solution providers to only come in here if they have done this before - and will not be researching on our time as time is not something we have much of.

Thanks!

[Devilish]

No body? Wow!

[cyberchoy123]

I'm from Cebu, we could talk and negotiate about your software.

Thanks

[Devilish]

Talk about what, vicidial or the collection software?

[cyberchoy123]

vicidial integrated to your debt collection software.

[Devilish]

But I'm asking about a collection software that people on this forum have already worked with that integrates well with it.

[DomeDan]

I think the best way is to try to get a hold on people that have been playing with this.
I found a few on this forum: http://www.google.com/search?q=debt%20c ... IDIALforum

[Devilish]

I think the best way is to try to get a hold on people that have been playing with this.
I found a few on this forum: http://www.google.com/search?q=debt%20c ... IDIALforum

Thanks Dan!
Got just one active member that I could try to get in touch with.

[dlaz]

I can say the best 2 pieces of collection software that I know of to try and integrate with Vicidial would either by Latitude or the new version of CR Software (Titanium I think). Both have open MSSQL database backends.

Right now I am using Latitude at my current company. I used CR before that, but not their new version. I know Latitude can pop accounts from a URL except it doesn't work for us on server 2008 / Vista / 7, but works fine on our XP machines.

Right now I have a list syncing interface and a near real-time account notation engine (about 30-45 second lag) written for my current company using Latitude. It would have been perfect if I was able to pop the account on their screen, but we are running Terminal Servers using Windows 2008, so it doesn't work properly.

I have enough experience seeing/ talking to people in the industry using FACS and KUBS (two other big players in the market), that it would be quite difficult (probably would require custom programming from the vendor) to integrate them so they notate the accounts with calls more quickly. Most all of them will do custom work, but charge a large amount per hour. At least for the company I work for, having the notes come in overnight would be a liability we wouldn't want to have.

I can say that all the major software companies that service the debt collection industry have very expensive licensing.

[Devilish]

Thanks for the update diaz.
I'm looking at software like Collect!, Totality Software, etc. FACS doesn't operate outside the Americas. Have you integrated Latitude with Vicidial yet or is it still ongoing?

Thanks!

[dlaz]

At this point I have it pretty well integrated, at least about as much as possible for us. The account notation engine will update the notes, change status codes, add BK and DEC info, etc to latitude based on what the agent puts in. It will also change desks etc based on how they notate the account based on internal business rules. Since the system drops info into Latitude about every 30-45 seconds, I added triggers to the vicidial_list and vicidial_log tables to populate custom tables with data to cut down some of the locking overhead in mysql that my query that runs to notate accounts.

Since my current employer has users that are not on the dialer all day, I also had to implement a DNC table that scrubs numbers that have been called during the day using our asterisk PBX and loads them into the DNC list for the day and then purges them back out overnight.

As far as the list loader what we do there is there is a tool in Latitude called account analysis that our supervisors use. This saves what they specify as a database query in the latitude database. Since our latitude and windows usernames are the same, I have a program that pulls logged in user, gets their last run query for account analysis and then uses that query to build the dialing lists, they also specify what types of phones they want to target in that list (home or work), since we are in the US and collection companies are now liable under the TCPA (for awhile we weren't or at least it was a grey area) we do scrub all our accounts against a cell phone suppression list. Our operations group wanted it set this way because they run a lot of adhoc stuff. There is also an auto building system I wrote that will take the above queries and save them to it and build them on the days they specify.

We also build a new list daily, its just easier for us than trying to keep our whole entire active inventory in the system. We have a set of scripts that auto archive the called lists/logs after 3 days.

The only minor issue I still have is the account pop integration, but its not that big of a deal for our users since they get all the basic information they need to do an initial talk off on the vicidial screen, and then if they need more info or to take a payment they just copy and paste the account number into latitude.

[Devilish]

Thanks dlaz! That sounds awesome!
Do you think for the integration to work properly we need to have Latitude on-premise or as a hosted mechanism?