Spin the wheel, take the ride...

One of the pluses of collections as opposed to telemarketing is not being on a constant "predictive" dialler. As a telemarketer or cold-caller for other agencies, you are on a call stream where you may or may not connect, and have to be ready to bounce into your spiel at any moment.

Collections is mostly independent calling where your skip-tracing takes you, but we do have occasional diallers that last about an hour each shift. They are a mixed blessing - if you get someone on the phone during a dialler and get them into a program, it's yours and it doesn't matter whose desk it was in. On the other hand, someone might finally get someone on the phone you've been meaning to get.

The diallers are of three types - home phone, work phone, and Waterfall. Home phone and work phone are easy enough to navigate, as you're pretty sure of what you're going to get due to the call destinations.

Waterfall, however, is the wild and crazy ride to strap in and see what happens. Waterfall can be exhausting to work, and the dialler especially so.

Waterfall is a data mining listing of phone numbers from several different agencies. Every couple of days new numbers show up, and in the listing there is supposed to be an explanation of what the number might be. However, I have only ever seen the explanation of "Borrower" - meaning a probable home phone.

The reality is a range of possibilities. Most of the time I get a "don't know that person and I just got this phone" or "Who? No, I've never heard of that person." or "Sorry - no English."

Occasionally it's a direct link to the borrower, and you actually get them on the phone. The trick on those calls is to retain composure, as if you were always intending that it was the borrower on the phone. Since usually it is because they are staying with a relative or hiding out somewhere and they are in as complete shock as you. If you show the first sign of fear or shock yourself, they will hang up on you and you will never hear from them again.

Generally, though, it is an array of ghosts from the borrower's past. Several recent greatest hits have included:

"Oh, we bought this house from her about two years ago. Was a great deal - she really needed it sold. No idea where she went."

"He used to date my daughter. She hasn't seen him for about two years, and I can tell you we're all pretty grateful for that."

"That bitch used to rent from us - left the place a fucking shambles and still owes us four months rent. If you find her, give us a call again, would ya?"

"Fuck, man...no, he was my dealer. Haven't seen him since I got clean. Heard he had to high-tail it out of town between the cops and the Colombians after his ass. How the fuck did you GET this number, anyway?"

(We also get the usual tales of parents who haven't seen children, children who haven't seen parents, and other fun family squabbles. Relatives will probably be its own post at some point.)

Leaving messages on Waterfall calls is tricky, so especially on the predictive dialer we tend to not leave messages. Which leads to some very cranky people sometimes.

"You have been calling my number and hanging up for the last two months! I don't know who that is. Why do you keep calling me if she doesn't live here?!?!?"

"Well, now that we know this isn't her number..."

"You didn't KNOW this wasn't her number? Haven't you people heard of the god-damn PHONE BOOK?!?"

There is also the issue that we are not the only company that hires these data-mining agencies. So if someone is a serial debtor, chances are a waterfall number has been hit by a few people before we get to it. Which leads to REALLY angry people.

"You people all keep calling for this guy! And the last one yelled at me and said he knew I was lying but I'm not!!!!! What's your company?!?!"

"Ma'am, that wasn't us who called you...this is the first..."

"I don't care! I'm gonna report someone! And it's gonna be you, dammit! Who are you??!?!?!"

"You have a lovely day, ma'am. I'll mark down this isn't his number." Click.

Add to all this mix that the predictive dialer doesn't always bring up information with the greatest speed, so often you're left there hanging while trying to stall for time before the name comes up. And heaven forbid it's a complicated name to pronounce.

"Calls are monitored and recorded. Hi, I was trying to reach Rama...su...quar..."

Hysterical laughter, followed by hangup.

It's exhausting - 20 minutes on a predictive Waterfall dialer and I some need either coffee or some sort of break just for the mental space. But I will never complain about being on a Waterfall dialer remembering back to my first month on the regular collection floor, on a 50,000 dollar account I hit on the predictive waterfall dialer where I asked for the borrower, and after a pause heard...

"Holy shit - how the hell did you find me?"

Spin the wheel, take the ride.