The program enables the bank to identify, contact, and treat "at-risk" but current first mortgage and home equity borrowers before they become delinquent. The four providers launched a production pilot of the loan modification program within 60 days of initiation.

"This program is a huge win for both parties to the current mortgage loan crisis, the lenders and their customers," says Tom Miller, Senior Vice President for Austin Logistics. "The lender can better protect asset quality and manage risk in residential real estate portfolios. Borrowers have a better chance of remaining in their homes and avoiding foreclosure. These are urgent matters for both parties, so we are pleased with our partnership's collective ability to seamlessly join our offerings and rapidly deliver this powerful program."

To date the bank has used the program to contact tens of thousands of at-risk but non-delinquent customers about modifying their loans. The process will continue until all customers eligible for assistance have been contacted. One of the earliest indicators of success was the surprisingly high number of customers who responded favorably to the outreach, willingly completing surveys to ensure their eligibility for loan modification.

"We were able to quickly identify highly skilled call center resources to reach out and qualify the bank's "at risk" customers. The qualification and conversion rates have exceeded the bank's expectations," says Joel Lewis, Convergys Vice President.

Another success indicator was the ability of the bank to dynamically adapt the customer analytics involved to ensure the most productive treatment for various categories of borrowers.

Brian Reiss, Managing Director - US Practice for Bridgeforce, said "The bank's satisfaction is three-fold. First, of course, is their unprecedented visibility into potential risk that might previously have blindsided them. But they also realized that this risk mitigation model has far-reaching applicability beyond the at-risk loans it was conceived for. By progressively adjusting the program's at-risk parameters, the bank could weigh their risk-mitigation objectives against their customer retention concerns, and they could develop a deeper understanding of which categories of loans could be profitably addressed and which could not - an important consideration because loan modification is a costly process."

"Finally," said Reiss, "The program gives the bank rapid access, through our partnership of four providers, to a variety of expert resources not typically available in today's resource-constrained environment. The program demanded that the rigorous design of the program, the fine-tuning of complex predictive analytics, the multi-channel contact software, and highly trained customer contact staff all be brought together seamlessly."

Austin Logistics provided the advanced analytics, Bridgeforce the consulting on process and policy, CMC the multi-channel contact and servicing technologies, and Convergys the customer management expertise and the specially trained staff to communicate with those customers.

The bank is currently expanding the program to additional areas.