A borrower says, “I'll pay on the fifth, after my salary.” Your telecaller writes that in a remarks column. On the seventh, nobody remembers. On the twelfth, someone rings and asks, as if for the first time, why the EMI is overdue. Now the borrower is annoyed, the promise has lost all meaning, and your team has done twice the work.
This post is about a sequence, and the settings behind it. For the rules of the wider trade, read our field guide to collections calling, and take your own legal advice. The product gives you the hours, the list and the script you approve. Consent, conduct rules and your sector's requirements stay yours.
Stage one: before the due date
Many people simply forget. A Wait step tied to the due date puts a reminder call in place before it arrives. The agent checks it has the right person, says what is due and when, and a workflow can send your payment link if the customer agrees.
Keep this one short and friendly. It is a courtesy, and most customers treat it as one.
Stage two: the call that takes a promise
On an overdue account, the agent confirms the person, says what is overdue and asks what is in the way. It uses the script you approved, so the last call of the day sounds the same as the first, with no threats and no pressure. If the customer gives a date, the agent takes a promise to pay.
Taking a promise is a built-in action, and it is a workflow trigger. So the promise can start something: a note with the date, a wait until that date, and a check call if it is still unpaid.
Stage three: the check call
On the day after the promised date, if your record still shows it unpaid, a call goes out. With caller memory and the identity check, once verified, the agent can open with what was agreed: “You mentioned the fifth. Has that gone through?”
If they say it has, take them at their word for now. Note the date and reference so your team can look it up before anyone rings again. A customer who has paid and gets another reminder has reason to complain. Keep your payment data current, because an agent can only go by what your record shows.
Who gets a person
Put these on a hand-over list, and test each one.
- Hardship. A job lost, an illness, a death. These need a human decision. The agent listens, takes the reason and hands over or books a callback.
- Disputes about the amount or the account.
- Someone who says they have already complained.
- A third party who answers. Don't talk about the debt. With the identity check on, the agent asks the caller to confirm the last four digits of their number before it talks about the account.
Hours
Outbound calls go only between 9 am and 9 pm IST, a limit you cannot widen. Agents from collections templates use 9 am to 7 pm. You can set them narrower for your book, and on plans with the Compliance Cockpit you can narrow the window for the whole workspace. Your lender's code or your regulator may say something stricter, which is one more reason to ask your adviser. Our note on RBI calling windows is background reading and not a substitute for that.
Remember the other side of it. A call outside the window is not placed, and it waits. A big run that starts late in the day may roll over to the next day.
Stop means stop
When a customer asks you to stop, or a number is wrong, take it off the list. Your Do-Not-Call list holds across campaigns, workflows and callbacks. With opt-out capture on, where your plan has it, a caller who asks not to be called again goes on the list after the call, from what they say in English, Hinglish or Hindi. It is off until you turn it on. A customer's STOP on WhatsApp goes on the list as well. This list is your own. The platform does not check the national registry.
What the agent will never ask for
Every agent is told never to ask for an OTP, PIN, CVV, full card number or bank password, and to stop a customer who offers one. That lowers a risk, and it is no guarantee. Collections is exactly where a caller may offer to read out a card number, so send payment through your link, and test this on a call with someone playing that customer.
Checking your floor
Put banned phrases in a QA Policy pack: threats, anything about telling family or an employer, anything your code forbids. Phrases are matched in what the graded speaker said. Grade your people's part of a call as well as the AI's, since the same rules apply to both. A Simulation Lab customer who shouts, or who claims to have paid, will show you how the script behaves before a real borrower does.
What not to promise yourself
We don't have a recovery figure to give you, and nobody can predict yours in advance. Your book, your bucket and your borrowers decide that. What you can measure is whether promises are being checked on time, how many become payments, and how many complaints you get. The collections page and payment reminders show other jobs, and pricing has the rates. Start with an early bucket, on a small list, with someone listening.