Any law firm that has a collections program would benefit from digital customer engagement methods that lower their servicing costs per file while generating more customer engagement, leading to increased revenue potential and earning more placements from clients.
With Retain by TrueML Products, law firms are able to work smarter—not harder—to improve outreach and recover faster by automating digital communications to reach customers when and where they are most likely to engage. Whether looking at pre-suit, post-suit/pre-judgment, or post-judgment, Retain’s SaaS solution can lower servicing costs, increase profits, and help your collection communications stay in compliance.
Let’s look at six key ways Retain helps law firms optimize their operations budgets.
1. Avoid and Mitigate Increasing Paper and Postage Costs by Going Digital
Stop buying stamps and start hitting “send” on digital communications to kickstart budget optimization.
Sending Model Validation Notices (MVNs) and Initial Demand Letters (IDLs) is already expensive with the cost of stamps increasing in price five times since 2021 and another 7.8% increase in 2024—but law firms can mitigate the financial burden associated with physical mailings by leveraging Retain’s digital platform. Retain’s Electronic Validation Notice (EVN) enables law firms to spend less by sending this first communication digitally, automating the delivery process, and engaging past-due customers more efficiently at scale.
2. Re-Focus FTEs on Business Goals
It’s not just snail mail that’s expensive—full-time employees (FTEs) are many firm’s largest expenses. Imagine increasing the right-party-contact (RPC) rate while decreasing your outbound calls and turn those FTEs into inbound agents who work with customers to set up affordable payment plans rather than spend their days chasing consumers that are avoiding you.
Use Retain to drive consumers to your payment portal and reallocate FTE resources to high value customer interactions and increase market share.
- 4x increased agent efficiency
- 75% reduction in required FTE for customer outreach
3. Ensure Successful Digital Delivery to Drive Engagement and Repayment
Prompting customers to engage digitally or through self-serve options saves FTE resources, reduces paper and postage costs, and enables scalability without additional headcount. In fact, studies have found that digital-first customers contacted digitally make 12% more payments than those contacted via traditional channels—and better delivery and deliverability rates increase that engagement (because what good does it do if your message never reaches their inbox?).
Deliver Rates:
- Retain Average Delivery Rate: 98.6%
- Average Industry Rate: 90%
Deliverability Rates:
- Retain Average Deliverability Rate: 87%
- Average Industry Rate: 84.8%
Open Rates:
- Retain Average Open Rate: 41.71%
- Industry Average Open Rate: 36.5%
Click-Through Rates:
- Retain Average Click-Through Rate: 2.99%
- Industry Average Click-Through Rate: 1.4%
4. Built-In Best Practices to Meet Compliance Requirements for Delinquent Consumer Communications
Retain features code-based compliance functionality informed by debt collection industry standards that you can set up to suit your organization’s delinquent communication needs, including:
- Strict ownership and deliverability checks
- Guardrails for safely delivering emails and SMS based on best practices for sending frequency and using customers’ local times
- Easily restrict your messaging by state or set your desired state disclosures
- Accumulate a digital paper trail to reference for audits and other compliance purposes
Best practices are baked into our code-based compliance rules and designed so law firms can meet all requirements necessary to deliver communications electronically to consumers in debt, like with our EVN features. Have questions? Retain’s industry-leading experts are available to help clarify and guide clients to make the best decisions to stay within regulation for debt collection.
5. Pros of Implementing Ready-to-Use Strategic SaaS Solutions vs Cons of Building and Maintaining In-House
Whether you are looking to evaluate your current strategy or jumpstart new communication channels to better engage all your customers, it’s important to consider the pros and cons for your budget between building in-house engagement programs versus working with a partner.
With Retain SaaS Solutions you can expect:
- Ready-to use, patented machine learning engine informed by nearly 6 million customer engagements
- Ability to scale operations without adding headcount
- Dedicated Email Operations and Deliverability Team proactively monitors and makes adjustments
- Email and SMS compliance functionality at scale
If you build it you:
- Need expertise in digital optimization, data science, deliverability, and digital experience
- Implement and automate email and/or SMS messaging
- Dedicate a team to stay on top of monitoring, adjusting, and maintaining relationships with ISPs and SMS carriers
- Make sure design and content can be read on both computers and mobile devices
6. Go Beyond Segmentation with More Intelligent Engagement Strategy
While all use cases aim to help law firms achieve repayment, Retain is built on advanced machine learning technology for law firms to achieve effective engagement no matter where the consumer may be in the process—from pre-suit to post-judgment and all the stepping stones in between.
By leveraging data science and analytics in automated communications to send messages at the right time through the right channel, law firms can apply a more sophisticated strategy going beyond basic segmentation for delinquent consumer engagement.
Ready to Get Started?
Automating digital communications to reach your customers when and where they are most likely to engage can help optimize law firms’ operations budget. Whether looking at pre-suit, post-suit/pre-judgment, or post-judgment, Retain helps law firms lower their servicing costs, increase profits, and stay in compliance.