Lending: EMI reminders only work if the phone rings—and the SMS lands

The problem

A digital lender sends payment reminders by call and SMS before and after the due date. Fair enough in theory. In practice, many borrowers never see the SMS (wrong template, filtered route, or DND quirks), and outbound collection numbers show as Spam on Truecaller—so people don’t pick up even when they would have paid after a polite reminder.

The collections team was working harder for the same recovery rate. Cost per contact kept climbing.

Why pick-up and SMS both matter

Loans are a trust business. A customer who sees “Likely spam” assumes harassment or fraud and blocks the number. A missed SMS means no payment link, no gentle nudge—only a surprise penalty later. Lenders need both channels tested on real networks, not assumed from a vendor slide deck.

What they did

They built a weekly habit: test a sample of collection CLIs across carriers, run Truecaller bulk checks after any telecom change, and send test SMS through the same routes used for EMI alerts. Issues went to the telecom desk with screenshots instead of vague “delivery seems low” emails.

What changed

• First-attempt call contact improved on numbers that were cleaned or rotated.
• SMS failure patterns were caught before a full billing cycle—not after complaints.
• Compliance and collections finally shared one view of how outreach actually appeared to borrowers.

Industry: lending & NBFC · Use case: EMI reminders and collections · Team: collections ops and telecom