CMA Launches Beta of New anscers RFI Reference Feature

Clearing credit references is a fundamental best practice in credit management. It’s something most of you do every day. Since CMA introduced the concept of RFIs on anscers.com five years ago, industry credit group members have been sending these online Requests for Information to each other to clear references quickly and efficiently. In fact, RFIs have changed the way that many credit group members request and receive trade data, replacing phone calls, faxes, and monthly reports with instant email notifications and information on demand. It’s a great service if you are in a CMA credit group and your group members are named as references or happen to sell to your new prospects applying for credit. But what if your references are not in your credit group, or you do not belong to a credit group at all?

For the last few years, your support team at CMA has been working to expand the anscers RFI service to make it available for companies that do not belong to a CMA credit group, and allow credit group and non-credit group members to request information from reference companies that do not belong to a credit group. Today, CMA proudly introduces the new RFI References feature on anscers.com. Now, all registered anscers users can send a Request for Information to any reference company they choose and to any company already designated as a reference for the subject company in the anscers database. Initially, RFIs sent to references (as opposed to credit group members) will be distributed by fax because of the predominant practice of using faxes to request credit “ratings” from companies listed as references. Our market research tells us that many credit applications do not ask for email addresses.

So why would you want to use anscers to fax RFIs to your credit references? We can think of some good reasons, like efficiency, for one. Particularly if you are a credit group member, it is easier to add a few references to an RFI you are already preparing to send to your credit group, than it is to hand-write separate fax cover sheets and fax them individually to each reference. The new RFI feature will send your request to all references you name with one click of a button. And what about continually checking the fax machine for trade data responses to your request? Not with anscers RFIs – you will be notified by email whenever there are tradeline responses waiting for you, and all that data will be aggregated into a single RFI report, which you can access online anytime you like. Finally, not only will you be able to add your own references, but also you can request trade experience from any past references stored in the anscers database. These requests will be more targeted than even credit group RFIs because you will be connected with companies that have actually sold to, or inquired about, your credit applicant within the last 12 months.

I am very excited about the potential benefits that this new expanded RFI Reference feature will provide for CMA members and anscers users, and I will be especially pleased if this feature will bring some of the benefits of credit group membership to our constituents who are not able to participate in credit groups. RFI References is currently in Beta, and I encourage all of our members to try it while it is free and give us your feedback. To access this service, credit group members only have to start an RFI like they normally would, and the new Reference feature will appear during the submission process. Members not in credit groups can access the service by clicking on the RFI tab at the top of any page, then click the button “Start RFI.” If you don’t see your RFI tab right away, keep trying back as we are still updating RFI access for all registered anscers user not currently in credit groups. Customer support is available at 800-541-2622 option 6. 

Your feedback is extremely valuable to us, so let us know what you think of the new RFI Reference feature, exclusively offered on anscers.com.

Sincerely,

Mike Mitchell

President, CMA Business Credit Services