NuDebt increases revenue by 40% with Freshdesk Messaging’s (Formerly Freshchat) WhatsApp API

About the company:

 

NuDebt is South Africa’s leading outsourced debt collection and payment solutions company. Established in 2004, NuDebt offers cash flow enhancement strategies to help failed debit orders become more bankable. Combining professional practice with cutting edge technology, NuDebt aims to provide an innovative debt collection and management service to its clients. 

Goal: NuDebt’s road to becoming a leader

 

NuDebt’s main goal is to become a leader in the Debt Collection industry and to assist their clients reach their full payment potential. They realize that meeting collection targets without alienating clients, proactively securing payment commitments and collecting the cash on the expected date are all difficult to achieve without technological intervention and being digitally relevant. And that’s exactly what they wanted to solve for.

Problem: Requirement of a digital shift

 

NuDebt’s conversations are primarily outbound and are aimed at persuading debtors to fulfill their payment commitments. Inbound contacts are in the form of queries on account transactions, outstanding balances, or payment arrangements. Inbound conversations have an almost certain likelihood of turning into a payment - becoming a potential source of revenue, and hence answering each one is always of the highest priority. 

With this in mind, NuDebt wanted to:

• Establish an electronic ecosystem and move away from physical voice calls to make the process more modern and accessible

• Drive inbound conversations, and hence debt conversions, on channels preferred by the target audience

• Ensure that every single inbound query was looked into at the earliest

This endeavor called for the right technology partner.

Solution: Introducing digital transformation with Freshdesk, Freshdesk Messaging (Formerly Freshchat) and WhatsApp integration

 

The NuDebt team found Freshworks on Gartner’s magic quadrant, and decided to get on board due to its agility and ease of use. The organization got onboard with Freshdesk and Freshdesk Messaging to have quick, real-time conversations with anyone who reached out. The platform has helped establish clear accountability by allowing team leaders to manage timelines and SLAs. 

NuDebt used APIs for agent efficiency. This aided in faster response as they did not have to waste time swapping from one system to another. NuDebt also integrated their debt collection software into Freshdesk and Freshdesk Messaging to help their agents get a complete context of customers who reached out and hence serve them better. This way, APIs and context pane served as the most important assets for NuDebt’s customer service.

Freshdesk Messaging’s WhatsApp Business integration changed the game for their inbound conversations. 

With WhatsApp’s immense popularity in the region, NuDebt has been able to establish a line of communication that users are comfortable with. Inbound query volumes increased from 100 chats a week to 1000 on the first day of deploying the WhatsApp integration. NuDebt also received approval from ADRA (South Africa’s representative and governing authority for debt collectors) to respond to inbound WhatsApp chats beyond its strict debt collection hours. This has allowed the organization to be available for conversations round-the-clock. 

WhatApp queries are converted into tickets on Freshdesk, which ensures that nothing slips through the cracks. Now approximately 30% of NuDebt’s collections have moved to electronic channels after the adoption of the Freshworks suite. 

Another unexpected advantage of choosing to go with Freshdesk Messaging + WhatsApp integration is how NuDebt started making 40% of their revenue through this channel. To put this in perspective, 40% of their revenue came from a channel handled by 30 agents as opposed to the rest 60% of the revenue that came in through their call centre that had employed over 130 agents. Such was the ROI.

Impact: A match made in heaven

 

NuDebt thoroughly enjoyed the digital transformation brought in by the Freshworks suite of products. The way Freshdesk and Freshdesk Messaging seamlessly functioned to make their customer service easy, efficient and scalable, flexibility of being able to use APIs to achieve results faster, easy-to-use agent portal, great self-service and FAQ knowledge base, and context-sensitive support were all things that helped NuDebt build a fastlane to their road to success. Lastly, the support and assistance offered by Freshworks was another inevitable reason why NuDebt wants to continue this partnership on and forward.

The way forward: Extending the Freshworks Advantage

 

NuDebt is interested in exploring how bots can elevate their WhatsApp integration. They also want to partner with Freshworks to enable electronic debt collection workflows right from WhatsApp. NuDebt is also interested in deploying Freshservice to manage their internal IT setup and explore the Freshdesk Messaging + Freshservice integration to enhance the performance and productivity of their internal team.