To ensure effective and positive engagement with your customer or patient throughout their journey, it is important to gather as much contact information as possible in the initial interactions. The practice of collecting this information not only works to improve service delivery and relationships but also leads to positive billing experiences and more effective collection efforts.
Incorporating additional information fields into your existing paperwork, online portal, and service agreements is a small step that can reap big rewards; include fields for additional contact information during initial account setup, registration for online portals or mobile apps, and new patient or customer forms.
These practices also offer an opportunity for you to connect with your consumers early on and determine their preferences. While you’re asking for new information such as email addresses or mobile numbers, also take the time to establish digital engagement consent and set user preferences. By determining what the consumers’ communication preferences are you can ensure you are using the best method for contact and also respecting the way they want to engage.
As an acting collection partner for businesses in a variety of industries, we witness how easily these practices improve the overall billing experience. Having accurate consumer data minimizes the lag time between account referral and first contact which reduces any confusion a consumer may have about a bill and allows us to contact consumers in the way they wanted to be contacted.
Our data shows that other additional information goes a long way. The chart below illustrates how data beyond the consumer’s name and address, can steadily increase recovery rates. Just providing a social security number with an account can make recovery ten times better than one referred without that data.
Time can impact how consumers feel about their account. Many studies have been conducted concerning how the value of money or services depletes in the minds of consumers over time. Temporal discounting, or time perception discounting, is a common theory which states that people by nature devalue things as they move away from the present. This means that the sooner a consumer is approached the better chance they have of resolving the account in a mutually beneficial way; avoiding the accumulation of large interest and negative impacts on their credit scores- negative experiences that can impact their relationship with your organization.
Mindful data collection during initial contact with patients or customers facilitates a seamless service and billing process that respects communication preferences and generates the most positive experience.