Case Study - ICB contact centre

Case Study – ICB contact centre

Insurance Collections Bureau contact centre sees phone payments soar with customer assurance from our secure credit card payment software.

Simon Rawlings, Senior Collections Manager at Insurance Collections Bureau in Welwyn Garden City spoke to Adooa about how Adooa’s phone payment software enabled them to meet PCI, assure customers and agents, and gain payments.

ICB are focused on debt collection in the vehicle insurance market, have 21 agents and run through around 10,000 instructions a month using Adooa’s secure phone payment software.

“Our aim is to try and collect as much as we can. We work on a contingent basis so we don’t buy any debt. We work on commission so depending on whether that’s prime or second placement, which means it’s been to a different debt collection agency beforehand.”

The Challenge

PCI Compliance, meeting security standards required by payment providers.
Finding a simple tool that agents and customers would use.
To establish rapport with the client: if we can get that hook in, we can have a conversation, we can tell them that we’re here to help, we’re not here to say you have to pay it all or send the boys around, because we don’t employ bailiffs or anything.”
Encouraging agents to request payment
Ultimately, to increase collections. “Our aim is to try and collect as much as we can. We work on a contingent basis so we don’t buy any debt. We work on commission so depending on whether that’s prime or second placement, which means it’s been to a different debt collection agency beforehand.”

The Solution

PCI Compliance With Adooa’s software tool, the customer securely inputs their credit card details into a separate system that your agent cannot access. This takes the agent and company out of scope of PCI. Simon explains how this has worked in practice: “What we were looking to do is to make that far more compliant so we’re not taking the card details down. Now we are putting the onus on the customer to give the bank those details. There is still a bit of reticence from some customers who don’t want to input their card details but they’re quite happy to tell us what they are! Obviously we don’t see the number so we’re very PCI compliant.”
Improved Customer Experience: Assuring customers with secure platform, gaining trust for them to make a payment. Has it increased collection rates? “Yes, that obviously has helped, having the ability for the to take away the whole piece where customers don’t want to read out their number… the compliance piece improved that from a customer service perspective.”
Tool to support agent assertiveness when speaking to customer. “We’ve done a lot of training over the last couple of years, which has included negotiation skills, assertiveness skills, being able to ask the right questions. You’ll be surprised how many people won’t ask, you know, to say, can you make a payment now? Some people find that quite difficult to do, but there’s been a whole host of training how we can go around that and obviously having this tool has helped us with that as well because you’re saying it’s a very secure line.”
Simple to use: “It’s a simple tool to use… people feel comfortable with it… and its self-explanatory in the way it’s set up, how you can set up a payment, or payment plans.”
Increased Collections and Phone usage

- Increased collections: with phone payment you can catch people to pay over the phone wherever they are. “We set up 1800 to 2000 payment plans a month”
- ICB take approximately 70 per cent of payments over the phone now, compared to only 30% online
- We are passed accounts on a regular basis by between 50 to 75 different insurance brokers per week or just do a one-off file depending on how many they’ve got. We will then work through them with your software.

Summary

Adooa are delighted to work with Insurance Collections Bureau (ICB), a forward-thinking company that values compliance, customer care, and agent confidence — all principles we share at Adooa. We support a growing number of financial and collections businesses, providing them with:

PCI-compliant phone payment solutions
Secure and simple tools that customers and agents trust
Improved customer experience through compliant communication
Increased collection efficiency and reporting visibility

For further information on secure credit card phone payment, visit adooa.com/secure-payments

For more information on Insurance Collections Bureau, visit insurancecollectionsbureau.co.uk