How University Collections Departments Use Data to Track Delinquent Payers

Many universities experience severe financial drain due to delinquent account recovery. For starters, hiring staff to conduct education collections and mailing out late statements can be rather expensive. In a few instances, the university ends up spending a fortune to recover one account that isn’t worth all that trouble. Therefore, the university collections departments have no choice but to leverage data to recover these accounts. Using the latest technology ensures faster debt recovery while utilizing fewer resources. Today, we take a comprehensive look at how university collections departments use data to track delinquent payers.

Early Identification of Delinquent Accounts From the University Collections Departments

The first step to ensuring you save time and resources is identifying delinquent accounts as soon as possible. Doing this will eliminate the need to report the late payments to credit bureaus or send the borrowers to a collection agency. It is not only stressful for your borrowers but also quite expensive and time-consuming for you.

Whenever a payment is late, the university collections departments can use data to update the borrower’s contact information and perform lending and payment history analysis. Therefore, it’s easier to determine a payment process that works for these early defaulters. It is a friendly, choice-based strategy that guarantees university collections departments get accounts on the right track to recovery.

Discovering Reasons Behind Defaulting

When the borrower falls behind on a couple of payments, the university collections department moves to the next stage of account recovery — a detailed debtor analysis. This is a vital step that delivers all the information the department needs to learn as much as possible about the account holder. You get to understand all the possible reasons why these accounts have fallen behind on payments.

For instance, people are more receptive to different types of communication. While some might check their email accounts multiple times within the day, others respond better to texts or phone calls.  Dialer technology can help automatically send messages via a borrower’s preferred communication method. It also keeps track of the most effective methods of communication for each account holder.

Leverage Alternative Data to Recover Delinquencies

Skip tracing is an integral part of recovering delinquent accounts when the individual is hard to track. It is possible that the account holder changes phone numbers, email addresses, or moves. University collections departments can use advanced technology to track location-based data, including the following:

• Travel records
• Utility bills
• Vehicle registries
• Credit reports
• Phone databases
• Job applications
• Criminal background checks

However, locating delinquent payers is just the first step during this stage. Because the account is gravely delinquent, university collection departments need to determine how collectible the account is and whether it is worth the trouble. You don’t want to end up spending additional resources and time on education collections that cannot be recovered at the time. It comes down to creating a priority list that starts with going after the more collectible delinquent accounts.

Categorizing and scoring accounts according to risk will help maximize your resources. Accounts with low outstanding balances, for example, can be reported to the credit bureaus. The delinquent account holder will contact you regarding the debt, thus saving you time and resources. However, the account holder will get in touch months or years later when applying for a line of credit. Other accounts with considerable balances are worth pursuing further with repossession and settlement initiatives.

We Are Here to Help the University Collections Departments

Getting delinquent payers of student loans or parking tickets on your campus can be a daunting task. However, Enformion is here to make the process easier and straightforward. Our information is publicly available, and we conduct all the legwork for you to make it easily accessible. Contact us today to make your campus safer and find delinquent payers faster.