TransUnion review

Credit is at the heart of almost every transaction. It’s therefore essential that business owners gain as clear a view as possible of their customers’ finances and their ability to repay any debts. 

Despite being best known for its services enabling users to check their own credit scores, TransUnion offers a broad range of products aimed toward small businesses. Through the company, you can access the data of more than 200 million customers in the US and check for potentially fraudulent activities such as those covered in our best identity theft protection guide.

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In our review, we look at TransUnion’s key features, as well as its levels of support and security precautions. You can then use this information to decide if TransUnion could offer the right credit management solution for your business.

Plans and pricing

As TransUnion doesn’t publish its prices online, you’ll need to contact the company directly in order to receive a personalized quote, and the price you pay will depend on your business’s specifications and the services you need.

To discuss your requirements, you’ll need to enter details such as your name, your company details, and the nature of your query into an online form.

Features

As the company offers numerous solutions and features, it wouldn’t be possible to list them all here, so we’ve rounded up its key offerings for small businesses. 

Through customer credit checks, you can gain a broad, in-depth view of your customers’ credit profiles. TransUnion’s database contains data on more than 200 million US consumers.

The company’s TLOxp Skip Tracing service helps ensure your business’s debt collection function runs as smoothly as possible. TransUnion makes use of trended credit data, which monitors changes in your customers’ behavior and accesses alternative data such as social networks. This information helps you to understand how non-credit behavior influences collections, while TransUnion’s analytics and scoring tools can predict potential risk in your portfolio.

Through the company’s TruValidate service, you can develop an accurate overview of your customers through factors such as their proprietary data, personal data, and online activity. Using this information, TransUnion’s global network of fraud reporting can then notify you of anomalies, assess risk, and help you to identify low-risk customers. 

Designed to protect your business’s reputation and restore customer confidence, the company’s myTrueIdentity service can help you to implement a response program should you fall victim to fraud. It can, for example, assist you with notifying any affected customers if your business is subject to a breach.

Interface and in use

The software’s interface will depend on the product you choose. With the company’s TLOxp debt recovery software, for example, you’ll benefit from a customizable online interface, which can deliver a 360-degree profile off any business or consumer. To access this information, all you need to do is enter a name, address, SSN, or any other data relating to the customer.

If you opt for TransUnion’s Express Portfolio Review to view your customers’ portfolios, you can upload a Microsoft Excel-compatible file into the company’s online self-service tool and choose from a list of more than 30 scores and 200 credit file attributes. You’ll usually receive an output file within 48 hours, which enables you to locate and target accounts that meet your desired risk levels.

Support

If you encounter a problem with your TransUnion service, the company’s customer service representatives are available over the phone on Mondays to Fridays between 7 am and 6 pm, on Saturdays between 8.30 am and 5 pm, and 9.30 am to 5 pm MST on Sundays. You can also contact the company via email, an online query form, or social media.

The website also contains an insights section, which is broken down into the following categories: fraud and identity management, credit trends and reporting, and research. Even if you’re not a TransUnion customer, you can watch webinars on topics such as gaming fraud and maintaining revenue integrity.

Security

When it comes to matters involving credit reporting, data security is of paramount importance. To help protect confidentiality, TransUnion restricts access to its databases to legitimate subscribers and limits account numbers on particular credit reports.

The competition

If you’d like to keep track of the creditworthiness of your customers, TransUnion isn’t the only option for small businesses. Experian is one of the best-known names in the market, with its services including customer credit checks and access to mailing lists of potential customers based on their credit data. 

Equifax is the other major player in this field and can offer public record or credit alerts if one of the businesses or customers you do business with encounters financial difficulties.

Final verdict

Although it isn’t possible to make an assessment of the company’s affordability in relation to its competitors, the range of features TransUnion offers to businesses is certainly extensive, and these features could help you gain an insight into your customers’ past behavior—and, perhaps more importantly, provide reliable predictions as to how they are likely to conduct their finances in the future. 

One of TransUnion’s most impressive features is undeniably its extensive selection of online resources, which provide relevant insights into topics such as cybersecurity and trends in consumer behavior.

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