ACA 2018: Challenges Bring Solutions
- August 2, 2018
- Categories: Business Intelligence, Compliance Management, Speech Analytics
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The 2018 ACA International Convention and Expo may be over, but we’re still basking in the afterglow.
It’s hard to imagine a better locale than Nashville. Between the music, food and culture, it’s deservedly become one of the hottest destinations in the country and served as a fantastic host. Over three memorable days in Music City, we met great people, made many new friends and learned a lot about the current challenges facing the collection industry.
But ACA 2018 also marked a milestone for Provana. In Nashville, we not only unveiled bold new branding and an exciting new website, we debuted two cutting-edge platforms, ICAP and IConnect247, which reflect our commitment to innovation and offer customers more ways to increase collections and reduce costs.
Every Challenge Has A Solution
The ACA is one of the premier events in the accounts receivable management industry, and we look forward to it year after year. It serves as both a forum for discussing important industry topics and a platform for introducing Provana to businesses across the debt collection ecosystem.
ACA 2018 represented an invaluable learning experience. We had the opportunity to meet colleagues, business owners and thought leaders from across the ARM industry. It was a chance to speak face-to-face with collection professionals about their businesses and the challenges they’re facing.
Those conversations were telling, and part of a deeper industrywide dialogue that’s taking place. Whether we were speaking with the CEO of a small collection agency or a large lender, or sitting in on one of the ACA’s educational sessions, a few topics clearly dominated the discourse:
- Technology – As new technologies continue to emerge, and artificial intelligence (AI) in particular becomes more accessible, many are wondering how they can be used to improve insight and performance.
- Regulation – There’s a lot of concern surrounding changing federal and state regulations, and uncertainty about TCPA and the BCFP.
- Compliance – Compliance is an ongoing issue for every company, but new technologies that make it easier to communicate with clients raise serious questions about what is and isn’t permitted.
- Education – Everyone wants to know how to run a tighter ship and get the most out of their employees.
While none of those topics was surprising, hearing them voiced at ACA was satisfying on a couple of levels:
- As a company that takes a holistic approach to improving our clients’ collection efforts, we always want to be in tune with their challenges. The one-on-one discussions and educational events offer insight into how we can improve our current solutions and provide inspiration for new innovations that address customer needs.
- The topics discussed align with the solutions we’ve spent the last few years developing. We’ve invested significant time and resources to offer effective services and cutting-edge platforms that help improve performance, compliance and profitability.
We pride ourselves on being a forward-thinking company that’s concerned with helping customers both solve their current challenges and meet their future goals. Accomplishing both requires a lot of R&D, and means creating solutions that are more than a simple Band Aid. The discussions that dominated ACA validated our team’s hard work and vision.
A Pair Of Timely Debuts
It’s no accident that we debuted two new products at ACA, just as the industry discourse has shifted to AI and emerging technologies. Both of our new products, ICAP and IConnect247, allow businesses of any size to adopt cutting-edge technology to improve performance and increase collections affordably.
- ICAP (Integrated Call Analytics Platform) – Designed in partnership with CallMiner, a leader in speech analytics technology, ICAP uses AI to automatically monitor and objectively score 100% of calls, and flag any potential issues. It also offers real-time performance feedback to agents, which can be used to adjust techniques in-call or during training sessions.
- IConnect247 – An industry first, this all-in-one debt repayment and customer service app allows customers to do everything from making payments to chatting with agents. It not only streamlines the collection process and enhances the customer experience, it increases payments.
WIth the addition of ICAP and IConnect247, we’ve expanded a suite of innovative and affordable technology solutions that already includes IDAP®, our business analytics dashboard, and IPACS®, our automated compliance management system.
Both platforms also help fulfill our vision of offering a full breadth of complementary solutions that can be used individually to address specific challenges, or together as part of a comprehensive end-to-end approach to collections.
ACA 2018 may be over, but in many ways it’s just the beginning for Provana. We began new relationships that we hope to grow, and launched two new unique platforms we’re excited to introduce to the world.
We also learned a lot about the challenges of the ARM industry, the needs of the businesses we want to serve and how well our solutions help address those needs – knowledge we’ll use to continue to innovate.