Is debt collection right for your subscription business? Weigh up these pros and cons.

If you’ve never worked with a debt collections partner, the prospect might feel a little overwhelming. We get it — there’s a lot of unknowns to deal with. While collections can be a game-changer for increasing subscriber retention and recovering revenue, weighing the pros and cons is essential.

Here, we’ll cover some of the most frequently asked questions about working with a collections partner.

Will sending my subscribers to collections harm my relationship with them?

Trusting a collections partner with your subscribers can be daunting. How can you recover revenue without making them feel pressured, or damaging your reputation?

The truth is, debt recovery can be a positive experience. Your collections partner should support your subscribers to get back on track with ease, flexibility and support. When done right, collections can help you to recover revenue, re-engage lost subscribers, and increase retention.

Think of collections as an extension of your subscriber experience. It’s essential that your partner provides the same level of care and attention as you do to your customers. This means giving them the freedom to manage their accounts independently, engaging with them on the channels they prefer, and giving them the option to talk to a Customer Experience team that genuinely cares.

Re-engaging subscribers lost to involuntary churn also directly impacts your bottom line. Every time you re-engage a subscriber, you’re recouping the time and costs spent on customer acquisition (CAC). The more subscribers you successfully re-engage, the more funds you can redirect towards growing your subscriber base and revenue. It’s a win-win.

To make sure your potential partner checks all the boxes, read more in the guide:

Where do I begin to find a collections partner for my subscription business?

Even shortlisting potential collections partners can be challenging without a vetting process. Everyone offers something different, so how do you choose? The perfect match should mirror your subscriber experience, share your values and step up to the plate with a proven track record of recovery performance.

Get started by looking at what consumers and current clients say about them. Glowing reviews and a high overall rating are a good indication of what you can expect from the partnership.

Next, ask questions. Are they across their compliance and regulatory requirements? How do they measure performance? If they’re trusted by other leading customer-centric brands and can support your growth ambitions, you’re on to a winner.

Finding the right partner from the sea of options is achievable with due diligence. To dig deeper, we cover the top five essentials to choosing a collections partner in this guide:

How can I be sure my collections partner is complying with regulations?

Debt collection is a regulated activity - and the compliance landscape is complex. How can you trust that your collections partner is on top of the requirements?

The answer is: when compliance and security are embedded into their operations — and by extension, yours.

We’re talking top-to-bottom implementation of compliance. This may look like a hard-coded compliance firewall to act as a fail-safe against human error. Their communications may go through rigorous compliance reviews before being sent to your subscribers. And, they should invest heavily in their technology, processes, data security, and team training to ensure they’re true to their responsibility to your business, and your subscribers.

Compliance should be non-negotiable on your list. Find out how InDebted’s debt recovery solution, Collect, stands up to the test in our blog post:

Start recovering revenue and retaining more subscribers with your collections partner, InDebted.

Throughout this series, you’ve gained insight into the advantages and potential drawbacks of working with collections. Now, let us fill you in on why InDebted is the trusted collections partner for subscription businesses just like yours in our next post: