Voicescape has launched new income recovery software for unsecured debts from tenant repayment agreements.
Voicescape’s Agreements Manager has been developed to enable social landlords to manage, track and optimise failing tenant payment agreements in a more controlled, active and lower risk way. The aim is to reduce break rates, lower the cost of managing agreements and improve financial outcomes.
Agreements Manager combines behavioural science, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence. It provides complete visibility and risk profiling so that housing providers and local authorities can draft and track agreements that are suited to tenants’ needs as well as align with their own financial KPIs and objectives.
Gary Haynes, managing director, Voicescape, said, “Although repayment agreements are set up with good intentions to help social landlords flexibly recover arrears over a period of time, the data shows us that the majority of agreements fail. This consistent trend has resulted in debts remaining uncollected, with those debts only being tackled if and when they have been manually identified and a new approach to recovery has been implemented.
“Informal or court-mandated repayment agreements are used by many social landlords to recover arrears that have built up. When they function as intended, repayment agreements are an effective way of managing debt and meeting regulatory requirements while providing flexibility and support to tenants. The real challenge with these agreements is that the system support to establish robust agreements, manage them over time and detect when they start to drift is simply inadequate.”
According to research from Voicescape, 25-50 per cent of arrears debt is typically tied up in tenant repayment agreements, with the average agreement valued at £700 and scheduled to run for 2-3 years. However, most agreements break within 3-6 months, with an overall failure rate often in excess of 90 per cent.
Agreements Manager uses dynamic risk profiling to customise instalment amounts and repayment durations for each tenant. It provides behavioural insights and data analytics on customers’ behaviours, allowing housing providers to consult with tenants and formalise agreements better. It also automates messaging and alerts to maintain optimal tenant engagement and reduce recovery costs, while accurately predicting and monitoring the status, progress and performance of each agreement.
