White Paper
Top 3 ways CLEAR solves your biggest skip tracing challenges
Identifying the challenges facing organizations involved in skip tracing is an important first step to improving the data collection process. This is why Thomson Reuters recently surveyed its collections clients for the previous installment, The Top Four Challenges Facing the Collections Industry.
Just as important, however, is finding the right solutions, and so this installment will examine how Thomson Reuters CLEAR for Skip Tracing was designed to address each of those challenges and help collections professionals increase their efficiency and accuracy.
1. Lack of current contact information of debtors
Contacting debtors is imperative to any successful recovery. A lack of current contact information, therefore, can pose a significant challenge in any recovery efforts.
CLEAR for Skip Tracing addresses that problem by maintaining the most up-to-date records available, giving you access to the subject’s newest information. The timeliness of data is paramount to accessing the most relevant and current contact information for a subject of interest.
CLEAR for Skip Tracing offers data from a wide variety of sources to help locate a debtor who is proving particularly difficult to reach using traditional contact information. For example, with live credit header data, you can examine a debtor’s most recently used address or phone number. If the subject hasn’t sought any credit recently, utility hookup information, updated daily, may provide valuable contact information. CLEAR for Skip Tracing’s Reverse Phone Lookup is another powerful tool that may find a new address, alternate phone number, or associate based on a single phone number entry.
Associate Analytics adds a layer of analytical sophistication by making connections within the data to find known relatives and associates of a subject, offering yet another way of locating a debtor.
In short, CLEAR for Skip Tracing offers not only the most current information available about a subject, but also a stunningly broad array of sources from which to draw that information.
2. Difficulty in identifying and contacting debtors
Many organizations report having difficulty in identifying and contacting debtors because of a lack of information – either current data or any data whatsoever – about the subject.
In either case, CLEAR for Skip Tracing has the solution. By maintaining the most up-to-date records available, CLEAR for Skip Tracing ensures you can always locate your debtor whether or not you have the most recent information.
A total lack of data, on the other hand, is most likely a problem of using inadequate search resources. Very rarely is there actually zero information available about a subject; rather, the records may not be readily apparent and may require a little more digging.
CLEAR for Skip Tracing can also get you over this hurdle. The tool provides a variety of analytical features that can help organizations find information on a subject in records that, on the surface, may seem irrelevant. With CLEAR for Skip Tracing, you are provided information on relatives or neighbors of the debtor. Associate Analytics analyzes the relatives or neighbors to identify possible debtor locations and can even find a subject’s profile that could be hidden under another associate’s or relative’s name.
CLEAR for Skip Tracing also allows users to locate debtors by searching live DMV data that otherwise may not be easily accessible. If a subject has a current driver’s license, you may also find contact information to reach that individual. Negative News provides access to both small town publications and nationwide papers within your search to help you pinpoint whether the debtor has committed any wrongdoing or has passed away. If the information is out there, CLEAR for Skip Tracing can help you find it – and quickly.
3. Takes too long to locate debtors when sorting through all the data
With today’s technologies, there is no lack of information about most individuals.
While this has proven advantageous for collections organizations, having to sift through mountains of data about an individual for the most valuable in making contact presents a waste of time and effort that organizations cannot afford.
CLEAR for Skip Tracing does the sorting of data for you, saving untold hours of unnecessary record scrutinizing. The platform gives users the ability to receive consolidated and accurate results from a search of millions of records.
If you only need to know the skip’s best address and phone number, CLEAR for Skip Tracing’s contact view makes that information immediately available without the need for any reports or longer reviews.
Of course, additional data is available if necessary, but CLEAR for Skip Tracing’s interface allows users to cut straight to the point, allowing users to save more time and move on to the next account.
Having to tediously sort through data manually is a thing of the past with CLEAR for Skip Tracing. With its many efficiency-enhancing features, the four biggest challenges described by our survey respondents won’t seem quite as big or challenging for organizations with this resource at their disposal.
Thomson Reuters is not a consumer reporting agency and none of its services or the data contained therein constitute a ‘consumer report’ as such term is defined in the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. sec. 1681 et seq. The data provided to you may not be used as a factor in consumer debt collection decisioning, establishing a consumer’s eligibility for credit, insurance, employment, government benefits, or housing, or for any other purpose authorized under the FCRA. By accessing one of our services, you agree not to use the service or data for any purpose authorized under the FCRA or in relation to taking an adverse action relating to a consumer application.