< Case Studies: DTS DataNet >

DTS Financial :: specializes in settling consumer debt by working with those who are struggling with their debt situation and have a legitimate hardship. The company was started in 2001 after a group of financial planners realized that they could not help many would-be clients due to their current level of debt.

When we first met with DTS they had around 10 independent reps that were using excel spreadsheets to collect client information, to calculate estimates for creditor settlements and to produce client paperwork. They were also purchasing their leads from a broker and divvying the purchased leads to their reps manually. This resulted in a slow and haphazard sales and customer service pipeline.

It was clear to us, and to DTS, that their current system was not scalable and would become ineffective in the long-term. Everything about the process was very labor intensive and inefficient. We worked with DTS to create a web-based application that met their budgetary needs given the current state of their business, yet also scalable enough that it will be able to grow with the business. The system includes the following major features.

1. We created a web-based intranet that allowed sales reps to enter lead details into their database, including debt amounts, number of creditors and hardship information. We then calculate settlement program fees and payment schedules. It automatically generates a PDF file in real time with a prospect's personalized settlement program information and emails it to the prospect for review. All the prospect has to do at this point is print out their paperwork, sign it and mail it back to DTS to become a client. This site is available to their independent sales reps, as well as internal administrative staff, which gives DTS the ability to collect and share new prospect and client information in real time.
   
   
2. To make marketing and lead capturing much easier we have the ability to easily import leads from a variety of lead sources. We also created a very attractive web site for DTS that allows potential customers to fill out a request for information. This information automatically gets fed into their sales system and is assigned to one of their sales reps.
   
   
3. After a prospect becomes a client, their accounting procedures that keeps track of creditor settlements, client payments and DTS fees has been totally automated. Because this is an online client-server system with a common database, the functions of accounting are easily scalable to one or many users at a time.
   
   
4. We created a site where clients can log in and see the latest activity with their creditors. They can also view payment history, quickly contact DTS and perform various other administrative tasks.
   
   

When we first started working with DTS, they had two principals and one part-time employee. Today they have over 30 employees and tremendous year over year growth rates. Their system was designed to fit their budget and operational needs from the start, yet we also made sure it was very scalable. We continue to meet with DTS management regularly to identify which tasks are consuming the most of their people's time. We promptly go to work on updates to the DataNet that simplify these time-consuming tasks. We are often able to take tasks that take up 10+ hours per week of people's time and automate the steps such that delivering the same results requires a fraction of the time.

DTS is still one of our best clients and we continue to work together to help grow their business quickly and efficiently!