An award winning visit scheduling solution developed specifically for Enforcement Activity

Enforcement Agents, Collections and Recovery staff no longer need to spend time manually planning their routes and the order in which they need to make visits for collection and recovery action.

Sphere is an AI-based visit scheduling and route optimisation tool designed to maximise the amount of visits that Enforcement Agents, Collections and Recovery staff can make on a daily basis. Not only does it monitor and automatically schedule visits, but by using algorithms, Sphere can also determine the most efficient route to take, based on traffic data, historical visit data, debtor data from internal systems and business rules set by you that best reflect your targets and goals.

Parameters can be predetermined, with visits prioritised based on any number of areas including debt type, debt value, age of debt, last attempted visit or expected outcome where a percentage of visits are likely to yield a specific outcome.

Optimising resource for visits
Sphere can also review all the different types of visits that your Agents or staff may be required to make, identify the different skills that are needed to complete each different type of visit and can then ensure that only Agents or staff with the requisite expertise will be scheduled to conduct that visit.

Visit scheduling by case attribute
The Sphere visit scheduler allows you to further determine the visits based on the attributes of each case – for example, type of visit, how long has it been waiting or how many Agents  are required to attend. Management teams can also apply constraints on when visits can be scheduled, for example, within defined timeslots.

Visit scheduling with real time learning to predict optimum visit times
Sphere uses artificial intelligence and real-time learning with every visit, constantly re-calculating based on historical data. For example, if visiting a specific debtor, Sphere will identify the times of the day and week when they have not been available in the past, in order to calculate the likelihood of them being home on the next attempted visit and will update the itinerary accordingly.

Sphere regularly synchronises information from the main systems your Enforcement Agency or organisation uses (for example, systems containing debt data, council tax, business rates or property information) as well as your ‘Line of Business’ systems, so that it maintains current information on the status of visits.

Dynamically updating schedules
The solution can automatically prioritise customers who haven’t been visited within a certain time frame and can also reschedule unsuccessful visits for a different time-slot. Automatically factoring in time for fuel stops and bank visits, if an Agent or staff member is behind schedule the system dynamically updates and optimises their routing and scheduling for the remainder of the day.

Protecting and safeguarding staff out on visits
Sphere can also provide an added level of assurance when it comes to safeguarding lone working Agents or staff when out conducting visits. It can be used to track them and an alert can be set up to be sent to relevant Managers if a member of staff does not check in by an agreed point in time. This provides peace of mind for staff and acts as an early warning system in the event that any issues occur during a visit.

Reducing the costs of visits
As fuel prices fluctuate and costs of visits increase, Sphere helps alleviate some of the pressure in this area by ensuring visit outcomes have a higher chance of achieving a successful result. This combined with optimised routing, results in a reduction in fuel assisting organisations in meeting their carbon usage objectives.