Voice AI for Payment Setup at a Debt Collection Agency
We built a compliance-first voice agent that automates the payment setup workflow—validating customer identity, collecting account details, and persisting everything into the agency's in-house CRM—so human agents can focus on complex negotiations.
Client
Confidential Collections Agency
Timeline
~8 weeks (4 + 4)
Telephony
Twilio
Why Payment Setup Was the Right Problem to Automate
In a collection agency, payment setup is a well-structured, repetitive workflow. Every call follows the same pattern: verify the customer's identity, confirm account details, walk through payment options, and record the arrangement.
Human agents were spending the bulk of their day on this predictable sequence—time they could instead use for complex negotiations, disputes, or escalations that genuinely require human judgment.
Repetitive & Structured
Same sequence every call: ID verification → account lookup → payment terms → confirmation. Ideal for automation.
Compliance-Critical
Debt collection is governed by FDCPA and provincial regulations. Every disclosure, consent step, and recording rule must be followed precisely.
Frees Up Human Capacity
By offloading the routine setup, human agents can focus on high-value tasks: resolving disputes, handling hardship cases, and closing complex arrangements.
The Problem
The agency's human agents were bogged down with payment setup calls—a process that's essential but doesn't require negotiation skills or complex decision-making.
- Agent time consumed: a large portion of each agent's day was spent on routine payment setup calls rather than complex cases.
- Strict compliance requirements: every call must follow FDCPA regulations—proper disclosures, consent language, and recording protocols. Human error here carries real risk.
- Manual data entry: customer details and payment arrangements were entered into the CRM by hand, creating lag and data quality issues.
- Scalability limit: the only way to handle more payment setups was to hire more agents—an expensive and slow approach.
Regulatory landscape
Why Compliance Matters So Much Here
Debt collection is one of the most heavily regulated industries in North America. Any voice agent operating in this space must adhere to strict rules around:
What We Built
A voice AI agent that human agents redirect payment-setup calls to. The agent handles the entire structured workflow, then saves everything into the agency's CRM automatically.
Human-to-AI Call Routing
Human agents redirect callers to the voice agent for payment setup. The handoff is seamless—callers experience a natural transition.
Identity & Account Verification
The agent verifies customer identity, confirms account details, and validates information against the database before proceeding.
Payment Setup Workflow
Walks the customer through payment options, collects payment details, confirms the arrangement, and provides a summary before closing.
CRM Integration
All collected data—customer info, payment terms, arrangements—is saved directly into the client's in-house CRM in real time. No manual entry needed.
Compliance Built In
Required disclosures, consent steps, and regulatory language are baked into the conversation flow—not relying on agent memory.
Escalation to Human
If a customer asks to speak with a person at any point, the voice agent transfers them back to a human agent immediately—no trapping in loops.
How the Call Flow Works
The voice agent handles the predictable, structured portion of the call while keeping a human in the loop for anything unexpected.
- 1
Customer calls in. A human agent answers and handles the initial conversation.
- 2
When ready for payment setup, the human agent redirects the call to the voice AI agent.
- 3
Voice agent delivers required disclosures, verifies customer identity, and confirms account details.
- 4
Agent walks through payment options, collects details, and confirms the arrangement with the customer.
- 5
All data is saved into the in-house CRM. Call is logged and transcript stored for compliance review.
- ↩
At any point, if the customer asks for a human, the agent transfers them back to a live agent immediately.
Simplified example of a payment arrangement call.
Hi, this is the payment setup assistant. Before we proceed, I need to let you know this call may be recorded. Can I verify your name and the last four digits of your account number?
AI Agent
Sure, it's John Smith, account ending 4829.
Customer
Thank you, John. I've verified your account. I see a balance of $1,240. Would you like to set up a one-time payment or a recurring plan?
AI Agent
Actually, can I talk to a real person about this?
Customer
Of course—I'll connect you to an agent right now. One moment please.
AI Agent
Solving the Accent Challenge
One of the most interesting problems we tackled was the client's customer base accent patterns. Standard speech-to-text models struggled with certain pronunciations, leading to misheard account numbers, names, and payment amounts.
This was a tricky problem to solve because accuracy on names and numbers is non-negotiable in a payment setup flow. A misheard digit means a failed transaction or worse—a compliance issue.
Key Results
Outcomes after full deployment and tuning across the 8-week engagement.
0
Compliance violations since deployment
4 wks
V1 deployed and handling live calls
8 wks
Production-ready with edge cases covered
100%
CRM data entry automated for payment setups
For human agents
Agents now spend their time on complex negotiations, disputes, and hardship cases—the work that actually requires human judgment and empathy. Routine payment setup no longer consumes their day.
For the business
Zero compliance violations since go-live. CRM data quality improved significantly with automated entry. The agency can now scale payment processing without proportionally scaling headcount.
Project Timeline
Weeks 1–4
V1 Build & Deploy
Core payment setup flow, identity verification, CRM integration, compliance disclosures, Twilio telephony setup, and human escalation routing.
Weeks 5–8
Tuning & Edge Cases
Accent tuning, edge case handling, confirmation loop refinement, real-call testing, and production hardening based on live transcripts and feedback.
Technologies Used
Key integration
The voice agent connects directly to the agency's in-house CRM via custom API integration. Customer records, payment arrangements, and call metadata are persisted in real time—eliminating manual data entry and reducing errors.
Have a repetitive workflow you want to automate?
If your team spends hours on structured, predictable phone workflows, a voice AI agent could free up significant capacity. Let's talk about your use case.