Delivering A Global Solution To Benefit Local Consumers

The bank sought to replace many disparate customer management platforms with a single global complaint management solution (CMS) that could be adapted to create a cyclical self-learning form of complaint resolution for each market.

The company wished to embark upon an ambitious transformation project that would see it replace its existing complaints management systems with a single adaptive solution that would span all its Retail Banking and Wealth Management (RBWM), Commercial Banking and Private Banking Divisions, as well as multiple brands.

In the RBWM side of the business alone, the total volume of complaints is estimated to be between 1.1-1.2 million per annum and the replacement system would be accessible to approximately 60,000 frontline users and 2,500 dedicated complaint handlers.

The global complaint management solution needed to be centrally managed but with the option to tailor it to regional requirements. These included workflow processes in the local language/s, regional and global compliance regulations, and rulesets for different customer subsets. The solution needed to encompass the entire complaint management cycle, from logging complaints through to escalation and resolution, as well as providing the necessary Management Information (MI) to monitor complaint trends and provide continuous improvement and deliver global oversight.

The bank selected Equiniti based on its experience in delivering scalable solutions in the financial sector, the flexibility of the MMX Enterprise Complaints Management solution and the company’s agile project management approach.

Starting in October 2018, phase one of the project saw an ambitious 18 month plan involving the decommissioning of existing solutions and the deployment of MMX to branch networks in numerous territories.

Phase two began in early 2020 and saw the project extended to another nine countries operating across multiple time zones and in many different languages.

It was crucial that the MMX solution be adapted to the nuances of each market. This not only involved taking into consideration linguistic and legal issues but also the bank’s business model within that country.

Based on a standardised central platform and with a configurable local layer, the MMX Enterprise Complaints Management solution could easily be adapted to meet the needs of each market and its local languages. In China, as staff are bi-lingual, the MMX solution was customised to provide both English and Chinese.

Compliance regulations can also vary markedly from country to country. In the UK, for example, there is a wide range of regulatory considerations from vulnerable customers to super complaints such as PPI. There can also be fluctuations in how regulations are applied. Some countries have similar requirements with specific regulatory timelines which are stringently enforced but in other markets compliance is negotiated, requiring the solution to be flexible enough to accommodate changes in demand.

Our client’s complaints management process is hugely complex, accessed by hundreds or thousands of people in each market, and the global team have noticed real results. A primary objective was to reduce the likelihood of a regulatory breach and, where MMX has been deployed, compliance issues have already been significantly reduced. User acceptance is high, with many remarking on the speed and capability of the application.

Impressively, just from the rollout of Phase 1, the benefits associated with the entire project have already been realised.