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Not recovering a portfolio on time has a silent, but enormous cost. Every delayed invoice has a direct impact on the cash flow, requires allocating additional resources, and in many cases, erodes the customer relationship.
In this context, many organizations ask the same question: how to automate collections without losing the human touch and without turning the payment experience into something uncomfortable?
The answer lies in combining three pieces: multichannel automation, AI agents, and an omnichannel contact center that allows for organizing and coordinating the entire operation.
In this article, we will go through, step by step, how these three layers can work together to accelerate recoveries, reduce delinquency, and free up team time for higher-value cases. Let's go point by point to understand how this can be achieved.
1. What "automating collections" means today
For years, “automating collections” was virtually synonymous with sending a batch of SMS messages or emails reminding of the due date. It worked... up to a point. The problem is that the world changed: now people move between channels, expect near-immediate responses, and want to be able to regularize their situation without going through an endless loop of calls and forms.
Today, talking about collections automation means talking about something much more comprehensive:
- Orchestrating WhatsApp, email, SMS, voice calls, and notifications from the same place.
- Defining journeys that adapt to the behavior of each debtor.
- Incorporating AI agents capable of maintaining natural dialogues and closing payment agreements.
- Recording, measuring, and optimizing the entire journey, from the first notice to account normalization.
In the Inconcert ecosystem, that "brain" is built around three solutions that work together: Infunnel, as a marketing automation and CRM platform; Inagent, as a layer of autonomous AI agents; and Inconnect, as an omnichannel cloud contact center. This integration is what allows moving from managing debt "by hand" to designing a true Collections CRM, which can prevent defaults and accelerate recovery.
Discover live how an AI agent negotiates and automates real collections conversations.
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2. How to automate collections: 3 key steps
Collections automation works much better when approached as a structured process, not as a set of isolated actions. A practical and easy-to-apply model involves five linked steps: target, automate, add AI, integrate channels, and measure. Each phase reinforces the next and allows for building a solid, scalable, and results-focused operation.
For this automation to truly improve your recovery rates, it is helpful to think of the project in three main, mutually supportive blocks:
· Multichannel automation and segmentation with Infunnel.
· Specialized AI agents with Inagent.
· Follow-up, escalation, and operational control from Inconnect.
Let's go through them one by one.
2.1. Multichannel automation with Infunnel: segmentation, reminders, and workflows
The first step to automating collections is accepting that not all debts are equal. Each type of delinquency has its own collections strategy, its own timings, messages, and most effective channels. Therefore, segmentation becomes the basis of everything: it allows distinguishing the urgent from the preventive, what requires a simple reminder from what needs closer follow-up, and what can be managed automatically versus cases that should be escalated to a human agent with full context.
With Infunnel, this segmentation can be built by combining criteria such as:
- The delinquency stage (preventive, early, middle, late).
- The type of customer (individual, company, sector, billing volume).
- Historical behavior (whether they usually pay on time, whether they have previously defaulted on promises, whether they respond better to one channel or another).
- Associated risk and commercial priority of the account.
Based on these segments, different flows are defined. For example, for early delinquencies, gentle reminders can be automated via email and WhatsApp a few days before the due date, while for more advanced delinquency stages, automation can combine more direct messages with warnings of possible service cutoffs, or escalations to the contact center to handle the case in more detail.
When a customer promises to pay on a specific date, Infunnel can schedule automatic follow-up a few days before and after, preventing the team from having to manually check which promises are approaching expiration. It is precisely in this type of action where many operations discover what they are doing wrong in their collections strategy: relying on manual control, being late with reminders, or losing traceability.
Furthermore, all of this is supported by a truly omnichannel strategy that uses the right channel at every point in the journey: an initial email reminder, a WhatsApp message with debt details, an SMS for urgent notices, and, if necessary, an automated or manual call to close the agreement.
Take a tour of the Inagent platform and discover how you can automate collections management with AI agents.
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2.2. Inagent: AI agents that multiply the capacity of your collections team
These agents can handle both calls and text messages, maintain natural conversations, and resolve a large portion of routine collections tasks: confirm data, inform amounts and due dates, explain available payment options, or register a promise to pay, among others. All of this 24/7, with no waiting times and the capacity to adapt to the tone and responses of each person.
In high-volume operations, this represents a radical change. The first line of contact can be handled by AI, while the most complex or sensitive tasks are seamlessly escalated to the human team. This accelerates recoveries without increasing team burnout.
Furthermore, the AI agents integrate with other organizational systems to consult information in real-time (balances, financing plans, status of a claim) and record the result of each interaction in the CRM. In this way, if a person later needs to speak with a human agent, they already have the full context and don't need to start over from scratch.
Learn about the technological basis that allows Inagent to automate collections effectively.
Access here
2.3. Omnichannel contact center with Inconnect: follow-up, escalation, and control
Even with a lot of automation, there will always be collections conversations that require human intervention: high-value defaults, delicate situations, potential claims, or strategic clients with whom the relationship should be especially nurtured.
In these cases, Inconnect acts as the "command center" where all channels converge and teams are coordinated.
From the contact center, you can:
- Assign each case to the right team, whether by product type, language, customer segment, or delinquency stage.
- Receive seamless transfers from Inagent’s AI agents, maintaining the thread of the conversation.
- Record everything that happens in every call, email, chat, or social media message so that it is integrated into the same CRM journey.
This joint vision helps control key collections operation KPIs: contactability rates, percentage of effective promises (not just committed ones), contact times from when an account enters delinquency, real impact on recovery rates, or productivity per agent, among others.
How a single platform helped Hughes Mexico centralize channels, automate collections.
Read the success story here
3. Automate collections to boost your recovery rates with less effort (and better results)
Ultimately, automating collections is not about replacing the human team, but about removing operational burden so they can focus on what adds the most value: negotiating reasonable agreements, accompanying delicate situations, and nurturing the long-term relationship with the people and companies you work with.
When you combine:
- Well-designed multichannel automation with Infunnel.
- Conversational AI agents specialized in collections with Inagent.
- And an omnichannel contact center like Inconnect, which acts as the backbone of the operation.
recoveries ceases to depend solely on manual effort and begins to rely on stable, measurable, and scalable processes.
If you are already managing high volumes of debt, perhaps the next step is very specific: review which parts of the process are still manual, where payment promises are lost, or at which delinquency stages delays accumulate.
From there, you can always start by automating a limited process such as early delinquencies or promise follow-up, and expand from there. The sooner you detect which pieces you can automate and how AI can help you better support each person, the sooner you will notice the impact on your portfolio recovery and also on the peace of mind at month-end closing. And perhaps this is the best place to start: evaluate which parts of your operation you can automate first.
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