As new government initiatives were swiftly rolled out around payment holidays and financial support for consumers, businesses had to adapt quickly. And for all financial services firms regardless of size or customer base, the past few months have put the effectiveness of their operational systems and their customer service teams under major strain.
We at EQ (Equiniti) look at the people on both sides of those phone calls, emails, and social media posts when we are building our customer management solutions and always ask – how can we make this experience easier for everyone?
In recent years the planning behind effective customer engagement strategies has focussed solely around two things, the customer’s wants, needs and expectations, and those of the regulator. However, as a Forbes article[i] highlighted, thoughtfulness and company culture are fast becoming equally important to the future of effective customer service and retention.
So how can technology support a people and culture focussed approach to make customer experiences more positive all round?
EQ has been working with major financial services organisations for over 20 years to help them manage both their customer engagements and regulatory requirements. Our technology platforms underpin the customer engagement, complaint handling and regulatory reporting operations for some of the UK’s largest financial services firms who, between them, serve over 270 million customers worldwide.
Whilst the traditional approach has been to bespoke our solutions following extensive assessment within the customer, after 20 years working in the sector we have come across many themes and challenges that are common to all firms, big and small. By taking away these challenges and concerns from the minds of customer facing staff, we free them up to truly focus on what the customer is saying and how they can help resolve their query or problem.
These common operational challenges that our new approach resolves include:
- Fully compliant FCA regulatory processes and reporting
- Developing a consistency of approach across the business
- Constant adherence to best practice guidelines
- Onboarding and training new staff
- Lack of in-house IT input and availability
We have now taken all these common problems and evolved our customer management solution into a reimagined approach to customer engagement. Our new pre-built SaaS model, EQ Complaints Professional, not only ensures compliance with all current regulatory requirements but also enforces best practice for all staff across an organisation.
Integrated expertise for mid-market firms
Effectively, the new EQ Complaints Professional system has integrated consultancy throughout, with automated workflows making the simple, process-driven decisions for customer service agents so they can focus on the best customer outcome.
All regulatory requirements are in-built into the system, as are the reporting and MI required by the FCA, so that firms can have full confidence they are adhering to all necessary guidelines and best practice requirements. This comes as standard and is regularly updated to ensure ongoing compliance as guidance changes.
As a SaaS model, it requires little in-house IT involvement, lowers implementation costs and can be deployed within weeks. Integration with in-house systems is available and online training is always accessible throughout the systems’ extensive help functionality.
This solution offers a new kind of confidence to businesses in that they can be sure they have the basic necessities of regulatory compliance covered, and have done so in a quick and cost effective way that future-proofs their business. It also gives confidence to both those on the front line of customer service and their management who can be sure that their business is providing a consistently high level of customer engagements and freeing up staff to operate within that framework to provide the kind of effective, personal service that keeps customer loyal.
[i] Five Trends Shaping The Future Of Customer Experience In 2020, Forbes, Dec 2019