CUSTOMER: Ontario Systems
CHALLENGE: Enable third-party collection agencies to comply with new regulations
OUTCOME: In 35 days, Ontario built their cloud-based “Complaint Tracker” application, instantly available to customers via subscription. They expanded their customer base, and expect to double it.
Ontario Systems, a leading receivables management technology and services provider, is easing the regulatory burden for its customers in the third-party collection industry. Utilizing advanced software technologies from InterSystems, Ontario Systems developers rapidly designed and built a cloud-based Complaint Tracker application and delivered it to early users in less than six weeks.
“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sent shock waves through our customer base with the announcement in 2013 that third-party collection agencies were under CFPB jurisdiction,” says Chris Cochran, Product Director of Ontario Systems. “Per the CFPB, third-party collectors are now responsible for monitoring consumer complaints, putting in place a formal process to take appropriate action, and responding to the consumer that the complaint has been resolved. Collection agencies are required to capture the complaint, regardless of how it comes in, investigate within the organization to identify any possible process breakdown, perform a root cause analysis of breakdown cause, and respond to the consumer within a reasonable time.”
Leveraging the Cloud to Shorten Time-to-Delivery
Recognizing the new compliance burden placed on collection agencies, a major segment of their customer base, Ontario Systems opted to fast-track their new Complaint Tracker application in the cloud. “We built a prototype that was reviewed by 25 customers, applied changes, performed the production build, and deployed it in our cloud data center,” says Cochran.
Complaint Tracker is the first product resulting from Ontario Systems’ breakthrough software as a service (SaaS) strategy focused on cloud-based offerings. “The application is immediately available to any customer on a subscription basis,” Cochran says.
Multitenant Architecture Enables New Analytical Functionality
Benefits of running in the cloud are readily apparent to Complaint Tracker customers. First, the application is conveniently available in any location and environment. In addition, Ontario Systems is able to provide customers with competitive benchmarks, which is critical to success in the challenging third-party collections market. “Since this is a multitenant environment, we are able to gather outcomes data, de-identify it by stripping out consumer and company information, and then deliver feedback to our customers,” Cochran explains. “Through Complaint Tracker reporting, each customer can easily determine where it stands in relation to its competitors.”
Potential to Enter New Markets
Adoption of the new version of Complaint Tracker has been strong. A significant number of users are new to Ontario Systems, indicating that the cloud-based application is opening doors for market expansion. Several of the new customers are running collection systems from other providers, some firms operate completely outside of the collection industry vertical while still being subject to CFPB compliance.
Based on this success, Ontario Systems will continue to deploy new applications in the cloud. Plans are to launch a portal which will host any new product built on the cloud subscription model. “We feel this is our best approach for ongoing innovation. We’ve been InterSystems partners for 30 years and have complete confidence in their technology platform,” Cochran says.
