Transforming your debt collections system is a substantial investment of time, money, and resources. However, not all transformations deliver their full potential.
Failing to fully leverage your debt collection platform can have a major impact on your business. Inefficiencies and lack of automation can increase regulatory compliance and conduct risk, as well as lead to poor customer outcomes. Without the right tools, insights and analytics, it becomes harder to scale, optimise performance, and stay competitive. Investing in a high-performing, intelligent collections system can drive stronger financial outcomes while protecting your brand and customer relationships.
So, what sets successful transformations apart from the rest?
Whether implementing a new platform, upgrading an existing system, or rethinking your overall arrears management model, these 8 key value drivers will help you maximise ROI.
1. Align technology choices with business goals
Successful transformations begin with a clear purpose. Before selecting debt collection software, define your objectives: enhancing customer experience and outcomes, reducing bad debt, increasing automation, or lowering operational costs.
Aligning system capabilities with business priorities ensures meaningful impact and prevents a ‘technology for technology’s sake’ scenario.
My recommendation is to convert strategic objectives into measurable success metrics, such as improved customer engagement rates, improved forbearance kept rates, improved conduct risk metrics, or cost reduction.
2. Design with your customers in mind
It may sound obvious, but a modern collections platform must prioritise customer needs, ensuring seamless transitions between digital and human interactions and maintaining a consistent, compliant experience across all channels.
Self-service portals can now match or exceed agent-led interactions, leveraging business rules engines to guide customers effectively. Features such as dynamic interfaces, vulnerability detection, and real-time decisioning empower both agents and customers to make informed decisions.
Regulatory compliant, personalised and proactive communications can lead to collection performance improvements of 7% to 14%, with increased customer satisfaction.
3. Enhance control and compliance
A modern collections system significantly improves the control environment by embedding robust governance, risk management, and compliance capabilities.
Advanced audit trails, automated decision-making, and real-time monitoring ensure adherence to regulatory requirements while reducing the risk of human error. Features such as configurable workflows, role-based access controls, and integrated compliance checks enable organisations to enforce policies consistently.
This not only strengthens regulatory compliance but also enhances transparency and accountability, reducing the likelihood of costly breaches and reputational damage.
4. Leverage automation for operational efficiency
Modern collections systems offer automation across the entire lifecycle, from ID and Verification and payment arrangements, to vulnerability, forbearance support and privacy requests.
Automation enhances customer convenience while driving cost savings. Organisations have reported a 35% reduction in collections costs per account, alongside reduced inbound call volumes, abandonment rates, and field collections activities.
Furthermore, strategy deployment that once took a month can now be executed in a week, representing a 75% reduction in time-to-market for new collections strategies.
5. Continuously optimise through data-driven insights
Strong data foundations enable accurate reporting, increased MI capability, agile performance monitoring, and ongoing strategy development and refinement, all critical for continuous improvement.
Future-ready platforms support structured data capture and seamless integration via open APIs, facilitating smarter segmentation and more targeted collection strategies and treatments.
Organisations that embrace continuous improvement and measure and adjust strategies accordingly, have seen collections increase by up to 13% in previously deemed unrecoverable portfolios.
6. Consider speed to value and avoid reinvention
While custom-built solutions may seem flexible, they often extend time-to-value and create scalability challenges.
Proven, Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) solutions offer:
- Drag-and-drop decision engines for workflow automation
- Built-in tools for remediation, forbearance, and recurring payments
- Secure, compliant architecture aligned with PCI DSS and SOC2 standards
- Cloud-native scalability with continuous vendor-led innovation roadmaps
Choosing a platform with these capabilities accelerates implementation, reduces risk, and ensures faster ROI.
7. Invest in people, processes, and change management
Technology alone does not guarantee a return on investment. Adoption across teams, from frontline agents to back-office teams and analysts, is critical.
Modern debt collection systems simplify workflows, presenting only the most relevant information at the right time. Role-based interfaces and intuitive tools help agents follow best practices, particularly when dealing with vulnerable or complex cases.
To realise full ROI, organisations must invest in training, process alignment, and continuous performance feedback loops.
8. Select the right vendors and partners
The success of your transformation depends on the expertise of your vendors and partners. Selecting providers with sector experience and deep knowledge of both the technology and the collections industry can determine whether your project is a delayed implementation or a transformative success.
Summary
Maximising ROI from a collections system transformation requires more than just new technology, it demands a strategic, customer-centric, and data-driven approach. By focusing on the 8 value drivers outlined above, organisations can unlock the full potential of their investment, drive sustainable financial performance, and deliver better outcomes for both the business and its customers.
The difference between a good transformation and a great one lies in execution: partnering with the right experts, enabling your people, and keeping your strategic objectives front and centre throughout the journey.
How Arum Global can help
At Arum Global, we’ve supported some of the most complex and high-profile collections system transformations across both the public and private sectors. We can help you with the entire end-to-end process, including business case development, system and vendor evaluation, delivery and design support, post-go-live optimisation, and Target Operating Model design. If you’re planning or already in the midst of a transformation, we can help ensure you maximise your investment’s return and deliver on time.
We also run the only accreditation specifically for collections and recoveries platforms. With an in-depth knowledge base of over 30 vendors (including C&R Software Debt Manager, CGI CACS X, Finvi Katabat, Latitude by Genesys, Experian PowerCurve Collections, Exus EFS, Flexys Control+, Telrock Optimus, Qualco QCR, Tietoevry Collection Suite Nova, Lateral, and Financial Cloud, as well as many others), and regular engagement with the market, we offer unmatched insights and recommendations tailored to client needs.
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About the author
Nick Walsh
Principal Consultant, Global Advisory
Nick, a seasoned collections and recoveries professional, boasts over four decades of experience both domestically and internationally. His expertise has empowered numerous organisations, spanning various sectors and sizes, to swiftly adopt an optimal operating model tailored to their unique needs. This tailored approach carefully balances regulatory compliance with organisational limitations, whilst charting a more strategic roadmap for improvement. Nick, and Arum, ensure good outcomes for customers are prioritised in all the client engagements we undertake.