How To Ensure Your Collection Email Campaigns Are Effective.

Please note that the information presented in this document are examples and what may work for some may not necessarily work for other companies. Odyssey Services does not make any claims as to their effectiveness or legal/regulatory use and does not constitute advise and cannot be held responsible for any circumstances arising from the use of such messages. Please also note that our Authorized, signed service agreement has precedence. Please consult your legal department for guidance.

 

Collection emails can be a tricky subject to master. Due to a combination of industry regulation, increasing anti-spam technology and recipients that likely do not want to receive such notices, ensuring effectiveness is not a simple process. Getting the Email into Your intended recipient’s Inbox is more complicated than just adding their email address to a list and sending it out. Here we will explore some best practices and strategies.

Getting Through the Spam Filter.

The growing number of email phishing scams have seen Email providers, IT departments and internet security companies be more vigilant when it comes to blocking unsolicited emails. Due to this trend a collection email is far more likely to wind up in a spam or junk folder.

Emails with the subject line including words and phrases such as: ‘Immediate’, ‘Immediate action’, ‘Last chance’, ‘Must sign up today!’, ‘Log in right now!’, ‘Offer to settle’, ‘Action Required’, ‘Exciting Opportunity’, ‘Important matter’, ‘Important business matter’, ‘Call us today’, ‘overdue’, etc. are more likely to be flagged in an email spam trap than other subject lines or content, especially if paired with an attachment (such as an invoice).

While your messages may be ‘important matters’ and require ‘Urgent Action’ from your perspective, this will not make a difference to an automatic spam trap or an IT Admin who cannot discern what is coming from a legitimate organization and what is not.

Using more personalized information in a subject line can also help. Such as using the merge tags in Odyssey’s email creation tool to easily add a name, company or account number to the subject, greeting or body of your email.

 

Sending to The Right Person.

Another important factor of sending collections messages is ensuring you are legitimately contacting the correct person. Many companies acquire or continue to use contact lists that were either not maintained or have been provided to them with outdated, inactive and inaccurate contact information. Unlike a home address or even phone number, an email address is very easy to change, create multiple of or get rid of.

These lists can be full of emails that are not active and even include what are known as ‘spam traps’ which are emails that are set up by an Anti-spam organization or Email domain in order to catch spam senders who will add these erroneous emails to their lists, some of which can end up being added to collection lists or added to lists purchased by such organizations.

When sending to a list, it is important to make sure it is cleaned of bad addresses and properly updated BEFORE it is sent through an email service. The reason being this can affect the ability of any future sends to be successful. A list full of bad addresses and spam traps can affect and block email IPs used by an email service. This means that it may affect not only the use of a collection company’s domain, but also other customers of a vendor using the same sending IP addresses. There are multiple online services that can test an email list for bad addresses in advance for this purpose.

 

Ensuring A Faster Response.

While getting the message into an inbox is important, what your end goal is in sending these messages is to get a payment or response. With that in mind, having an easily identifiable way to reply to the email such as a phone number, mailing address, or what information to respond with in order to initiate a payment is helpful.

Having information available in a subject such as the recipient account number, invoice number and short, clear verbiage with no aggressive or pressurizing language.

Another useful addition may be a direct link to a payment method that can be used by the recipient to make a quick, instant payment. This ease of use will make it more likely for them to take action immediately.

Coordinating Message Types.

While sending just an email can be effective and gain results, using multiple media types based on the customer information you have can have a few benefits. Firstly, receiving a follow up from another media source can help to provide legitimacy. If an SMS or voicemail and email contains matching customer information, this can make it more likely that the recipient verifies that this is coming from a legitimate source.

It can also give you an opportunity to reach someone who may no longer use one form of contact information.  As discussed above, emails can be switched or disused faster than other contact methods.

*Of course, when it comes to the collection industry, regional regulations vary in regards to contacting debt holders, but must be adhered to when looking at what content, media type and how frequently you can send to an individual through one or multiple media types.

 

*Please note that the information presented in this document are examples and what may work for some may not necessarily work for other companies. Odyssey Services does not make any claims as to their effectiveness or legal/regulatory use and does not constitute advise and cannot be held responsible for any circumstances arising from the use of such messages. Please also note that our Authorized, signed service agreement has precedence. Please consult your legal department for guidance.

                              

How to Use Odyssey Analytics Tools to Provide Insights About Your Messages and Recipients.

 

     Odyssey’s secure WebPortal provides numerous analytics tools which clients can access to gain relevant data throughout each stage of the message sending process. These tools can be used to track and gain better insights on strategy creation for your message content, lists and optimal scheduling.

     When generating a customer email, SMS or fax list, the quality of the recipients on that list is of primary importance to ensure you reach your intended audience. This is something one should strive to achieve before a list is sent, however, this is not always a perfect process!

     Odyssey’s post-transmission details shows you essential basic information such as if your message has successfully sent or failed, as well as gives you specific insights as to WHY it has failed.

Email

     For email analytics, the Portal displays if an email is none active (Hard bounce), if it possibly has a transmission error in the receiver’s server (Soft Bounce), if its possibly on your account’s “opt out” list or recipient's system has a filter (Rejected). Our Portal provides a list of addresses and statistical data for each of the above options.

     The next type of email analytics data you will see on the Portal is for open and click rates. Even if an email is successfully sent; it will not matter if your recipients do not open the message. This information may be helpful in providing insight into changing your strategy in terms of email and subject composition, into something they feel is worthy of their time to open and read.

     This tool will show you how many of your successful emails were opened, links clicked and opt outs. You can also track this activity on the basis of the first 24 hours, first 7 days or the last 12-hour period at the time of your inquiry.

 

     Link details will outline each link present in your email and how many times each has been clicked on, total times and by unique recipients.

     This tool can be used to determine where your recipients are drawn to, what parts of your websites are receiving attention or if the links you want to receive attention are actually being clicked.

SMS

     SMS based analytics can be more specific to the reason a message is unsuccessful. This is because it draws from data received from the carrier receiving the message This allows you a better understanding of the quality of your list and what measures you can take to clean that list up for future sends.

Here are some examples of various possible outcomes:

    

 Activity details can give you insights on various factors of the interactions from your recipients, such as how many replies your message has received (Answers), How many have opted out and the total of those who either replied or clicked on a link in the message (Acknowledged).

Confirmed Recipients tracks if we have a status of the messages outcome once it successfully reaches the carrier. This does not mean a message has failed or has not been received, just that the carrier has   accepted the message and has not provided further information on its final destination.

                         

Why Odyssey’s SMS service can help you regularly communicate with your remote team

Some common feelings of remote workers are that of being isolated and the lack proper communication. They want to feel more connected to their office and team.

Likewise, businesses depend on remote workers doing their tasks effectively to be operational, and being able to get questions rapidly answered is key to this relationship.

SMS can be an excellent communication method for this purpose. Most people can more immediately answer a text to the phone they carry at all times, than an email or group chat.

With Odyssey, you can individualize a mass text sent to your team so that each SMS recipient gets a unique response based on their personal requirements.

1. Reach out instantly for a situation that needs immediate attention.

2. Touch base in a way that feels more personal to the recipient.

3. Keep everyone updated on recent accomplishments and growth.

4. Read all SMS replies in a single place.

You can use text in conjunction with other communication streams to ensure your message will be read, even on the trip for morning coffee!