The Analysis News & Opinions


‘Digital is a gateway to more engagement’


Opinion


HMRC credit-card ban has consequences


Following the deadline for tax returns, there were thousands of taxpayers across the country – from self-employed consultants to limited companies – facing urgent bills. However, news earlier in the month that


Technology channels for communicating with customers can provide an easy and approachable way to begin a conversation with customers, but you need to pitch the tone of conversation correctly, according to a group of senior industry professionals. At a debate run by CCRMagazine, in


association with The Zinc Group, Richard Fenton, head of corporate development at The Zinc Group, said: “Digital can be ‘gateway communications’. We have probably six ways of contacting the business outside of verbal channels now. The customers use that and we often find that they convert into a call, so we have a special team which we call ‘e-solutions’ and we thought that these guys need to be the best in terms of written skills: that was wrong. “If you talk to the Millennial who sent you


the text message ‘why are you sending being so rude, who died, why did you call?’, the sentence should be very short, with three emojis! And all of a sudden, you have a different environment in terms of the conversation coming in, and you have to decide in the business how you react to that. “Because, even with the best will in the


world, TCF is not a smiley-face emoji! It is about giving the customer the right information, but they want it short, sharp, concise, and accurate. And then they will decide if they are going to call you.” Stuart Sykes, group customer operations director at MyJar, added: “It is a question of


March 2018


finding a baseline of assumptive sociological patterns and starting from there. “If you do have the AI technology to look


into it, and someone is not a Millennial, but prefer a given method of communication, then that is where you are not popped into the robot-dialler or predictive, you are on a WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger plan. Certainly, for ourselves, as a digital online lender, we look for the baseline and then build from there, because otherwise you are fishing in the dark, you have no clue what you are going to be doing and how!” Meanwhile, Laurence Venn, formerly


head of collections and recoveries at Yorkshire Building Society, said: “I would say that the caution with digital is that sometimes you do need that conversation, so it is a question of getting them on the hook in any way that you can, but then anyone who has run a mortgage book, for example, about 70% of people who are in arrears, have been in arrears before. You have to understand the customer’s circumstances to try to avoid these repeating situations. “Any way that we can get them on the


hook and put them at their ease, then that is a good thing, but then recognise when it is not a short-term issue, and you have to solve the problem. You really need to think about having those well-trained people, but what AI will do is to free up those people to become more specialist, and that fulfils them, as a person and in their career.”


www.CCRMagazine.com


HMRC had banned credit-card payments came as an unwelcome surprise for many. According to HMRC, in 2016-2017 there


were 454,000 personal credit-card payments, worth a total of £741m, suggesting that there could be close to half a million people currently struggling with ways to pay. This news will have come as a shock for


some that had anticipated paying on credit card. However, there are alternatives. For example, bridging finance can be raised as a short-term solution, which could work where it is just a temporary cashflow situation. Alternatively, a secured loan might be an


option for those that want a longer-term loan, but do not want to affect their mortgage terms with a remortgage, and can choose a flexible timescale to suit. Recently, we helped a self-employed


director when they needed £60,000 for a bill from HMRC – and who was struggling to borrow from mainstream lenders, due to having multiple income streams. We assessed the customer’s situation and


provided a loan for the full amount, secured against their £460,000 property. This allowed them to pay off the bill, which had been accruing an eye-watering £1,000 in interest each month.


Richard Tugwell Group intermediary relationship director, Together


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