Payscout’s APS to Exhibit Simulated Virtual Reality Debt Payment Experience at ACA Annual Convention
Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) June 14, 2016 -- APS (Powered by Payscout) will offer a virtual reality presentation highlighting—and demonstrating—the potential of VR to improve and streamline the debt collection process at the upcoming Association of Credit and Collections Professionals (ACA) annual convention and trade show, scheduled to take place in Denver on June 16-18, 2016.
“Attendees at the ACA annual convention are looking for ways to improve efficiency and business process solutions,” said Payscout CEO Cleveland Brown. “The virtual-reality-based solution APS is demonstrating, offers a possibility of greatly enhancing the payer experience through the debt payment process, and will also provide improved effectiveness and productivity to the ARM industry itself.”
“In particular,” Brown said, “this technology is aimed at the GenX and Millennial demographics, which are already using VR and other emerging technologies much more readily than former generations—and this will set the pace for VR adoption across the rest of the marketplace.”
Third-party debt payments, Brown notes, plays a vital role in maintaining the nation’s economic health. It enables organizations to survive and prevents layoffs. It also keeps credit, goods, and services available, and reduces the need for tax increases to cover government budget shortfalls. A PricewaterhouseCooper study commissioned by ACA gives a sense of the industry’s contribution. In 2013, third-party debt payments returned just under $50 billion in net assets to the economy; it provided 231,000 jobs with a total payroll of $12.4 billion and paid a total of $2.6 billion in state and federal taxes. In terms of philanthropy, the industry gave back over two million company and individual volunteer hours, and more than $130 million in donations.1
According to Jennifer Brummett, Vice President of APS (Powered by Payscout), the success of the ARM industry depends on the ability of debt professionals to reach a mutually workable arrangement with the debtors whose accounts they are handling. “Contrary to popular depictions that collectors are unreasonable and highly aggressive,” said Brummett, “the most successful people in this industry function as counselors and mediators, seeking to balance the financial demands facing the debtor with legal and just claims from the creditor.”
An important component of the ARM industry, Brummett adds, is the debtor experience. The more an individual feels understood and taken care of during the debt payment process, the better the prospects are of reaching a timely and successful resolution. Experts agree that the importance of the customer experience is growing rapidly, and managers in consumer-facing industries—emphatically including the ARM industry—need to stay abreast of developments designed to improve that experience.
“The best customer experience leaders design their customer experience from the point of view of the customers’ motivations and goals,” says Gene Alvarez, Managing Vice-President, Gartner, Inc. “Customers believe the experience should be mutually beneficial, and therefore designed with them in mind. This is particularly true where the seller or provider is seen as borderline privacy-intrusive.”2
One emerging technology that shows enormous promise for enhancing the consumer experience is virtual reality. As a contributor to Computerworld recently commented, “I’ve been technologically savvy for as long as I can remember, and there have been very few situations where tech has left a ‘wow’ feeling in the same way virtual reality has. Businesses are embracing the technology, and new use cases are being created every day.”3
“With VR, the possibilities to impact various industries are only limited by one's lack of innovative spirit. Therefore, we asked ourselves how the technology could be used positively in the accounts receivable management arena to help increase engagement, improve customer service, and create innovative ways to connect with debtors for a better experience,” added Brown.
As a complete customer experience, virtual reality is part of the consumer’s omni-channel experience. Omni-channel payment types in all industries add value by increasing efficiency for the companies that utilize them, Brown noted. These emerging technologies are used to reduce manual labor time and offer many different ways for customers to purchase, make payments on revolving accounts and make good on outstanding debt.
To give ACA attendees a sense of VR’s possibilities, the APS (Powered by Payscout) virtual reality presentation demonstrates a simulated VR debt payment. “This,” said Brown, “represents the future of how omni-channel payments are evolving in the accounts receivable management industry.”
About Payscout, Inc.:
“Payscout Supports the Entrepreneurial Dream One Transaction at a Time.”
Payscout is a global payment processing provider covering six continents by connecting merchants and consumers via credit, debit, ATM and alternative payment networks. What differentiates Payscout is its mission “to support the entrepreneurial dream one transaction at a time.” Payscout achieves this by being a thought leader in the payments industry. Its “Go Global Now” technology platform gives merchants instant access to 100+ countries, billions of consumers and trillions of dollars. Payscout offers payment processing solutions for brick-and-mortar and eCommerce transactions, and has earned acclaim as a new-generation provider of merchant banking services, specializing in online/eCommerce retailers with a predominant proportion of card-not-present (CNP) transactions; it is one of the few providers to deliver a true global payment solution that encompasses all merchant risk verticals. Customers can access Payscout’s credit card processing services via a state-of-the-art, web-based user portal and through direct interactions with highly-trained experts. In addition to supporting thousands of clients across a multitude of industries and all 50 American states, Payscout maintains global partnerships with VISA USA, Bank of America Merchant Services, VISA Europe, VISA Latin America, VISA Asia Pacific, MasterCard Worldwide, China Union Pay, Deutsche Bank, First Data and Payscout Brazil. Payscout was recognized as one of America’s fastest-growing privately-held companies in 2014 and 2015, ranking #2,416 in 2014 and #434 in 2015, on Inc. Magazine’s Inc. 500/5000 list. Within the financial services industry, Payscout placed #140 in 2014 and #24 in 2015. For more information, visit http://www.payscout.com.
1. “Impact of Third-Party Debt Collection on the State and National Economies,” ACA International/Ernst & Young, 2014. http://www.acainternational.org/economicimpact.aspx
2. Pettey, Christy, “The Consumer Experience in 2020,” Gartner, Inc., September 10, 2015. http://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/the-customer-experience-in-2020/
3. Goupil, Nicholas, “Immersive Consumer Experiences: Consumer Virtual Reality is Here,” Computerworld, March 14, 2016. http://www.computerworld.com/article/3044079/internet-of-things/immersive-customer-experiences-consumer-virtual-reality-is-here.html
Karla Jo Helms, JoTo PR, +1 (888) 202-4614 Ext: 802, [email protected]
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