After a slow start, tax refund processing has quickly caught up. By March 7, the IRS had processed 61.8 million returns—just 1.8% behind last year's figures.
While the average refund amount has decreased slightly from February's 7.5% year-over-year increase, it still remains 5.7% higher than in 2024, with most consumers receiving around $3,324.
With refund distribution accelerating, now is the ideal time to ramp up outreach efforts.
With the average refund amount slightly above $3,000, many consumers likely planned their expenses around that number—meaning the extra refund they receive can go toward settling outstanding debt.
Now is the time to engage low-balance accounts under $500, including fresh accounts, older accounts, and those on a payment plan but who have missed a few payments.
However, the challenge remains:
How do you capture these payments efficiently without diverting valuable agent resources?
The answer lies in self-serve, closed-loop campaigns that identify payment intent and convert it efficiently without manual intervention.
Payment intent reveals when customers are close to making a payment:
✅ Clicking payment links in text messages
✅ Making inbound calls (even if they miss connecting with an agent)
✅ Visiting the payment portal without completing transactions
These signals are valuable indicators of readiness to pay, but only if you can act on them immediately.
Capturing payment intent is critical, but acting on it instantly is what separates high-performance teams from the rest.
If your communication systems are disconnected, it’s tough to capture signals and act on them effectively.
You need systems that talk to each other and automate actions in real-time.
This is something many companies lack, and at Prodigal, we’ve worked with 100+ companies to create an intelligence engine that connects systems and enables collection leaders to execute strategies that weren’t possible before.
Scaling digital collections and self-serve automated campaigns is key to maximizing returns. But as mentioned, systems must be in place to act when payment intent is detected. Here are real-life strategies that you can implement:
If a customer clicks the payment link but doesn’t pay, trigger an automated AI agent follow-up call within 30 minutes.
If you have consent, deploy an AI agent like ProAgent, which is built on Prodigal Intelligence Engine (PIE) to seamlessly connect with all your systems. This allows ProAgent to recognize intent and respond in real time. It can say:
"I noticed you tried making a payment—did you face any issues?"
This reduces friction, resolves queries instantly, and increases conversion rates.
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(If you have consent) Since ProAgent is powered by PIE, it can segment customers based on real-time behavior across multiple systems. For example:
If a customer replies to a text with a query, an AI agent can handle the two-way conversation in real time, ensuring a frictionless experience.
If a customer hasn’t engaged with past texts, it may not be worth sending another one. Instead, try AI calling as a first touchpoint, especially if the consumer hasn’t been contacted yet due to limited human agent bandwidth.
The winning strategy combines early intent identification with automated, immediate response. Connected systems and AI-driven automation allow you to close more accounts without increasing operational costs.
By implementing these strategies, collection teams can improve recovery rates year-round through frictionless payment options that meet customers at their moment of highest payment readiness.
Want to see it in action? Check out our omnichannel AI Agent powered by Prodigal’s Intelligence Engine to capture intent signals and automate next steps seamlessly.
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