Return on investment for collectors using email

Email by numbers

• A recent Experian study finds that 99% of business leaders are using email today or have plans to use email in the future.
• According to a 2023 CFPB survey, 85% of debt collectors reported using email to communicate with debtors in the past year—the most common form of communication used by collectors.
• Experian and a collector ran an A/B test by adding email to a phone outreach plan to find that 25% of customers paid the debt owed via email.
• 1.9 Billion emails complete Experian’s compliant and permission-based database, an internet compiled source that has been collecting data for over two decades.

Why email could mean more savings for you

Here's an illustration:

Suppose collectors intend to reach out to customers via both phone and email channels, with an average of four attempts per client per channel. Assuming that appending 10,000 emails costs $2,000, which is the equivalent of sending four emails per address, and a phone call costs an average of $1.50, we could expect the following outcomes:

• For every $1 spent on appending email addresses, debt collectors will save $14.
• By leveraging email when phone calls get no response, agencies could save upwards of $56,000 - and potentially increase the amount of debt recovered.

This example represents a return on investment for collectors of 1400%, based on saved phone call costs.