In Focus Consumer Credit


Is customer service broken in financial services?


The financial-services industry has a customer-services problem, but modern technology can help to solve it.


Matthew Rowe Sales manager, Esendex matthew.rowe@esendex.com


Earlier this year, the FCA reported that, excluding PPI, there were 2.15 million complaints made to financial-services providers in the second half of 2016. Of those, 40% related to general administration and customer service. Add to this the context of an environment


where, regardless of your company size and industry, 85% of your customers are measuring your customer experience against the best in the world – think Amazon, Netflix, and Starbucks – and it is reasonable to suggest that this industry needs to address its customer-service challenges.


The problem So what is wrong with customer service in the financial-services industry? We can start with responsiveness. Eptica


evaluated insurers’ ability to provide answers to 10 routine customer questions, asked across four channels: via information on the website, e-mail, social media, and chat. On average, only four out of 10 questions were successfully answered, and 20% of insurers failed to provide any answers at all. We can also view complaint handling. The


UK Customer Satisfaction Index reported a 13.8% increase in the number of escalated complaints to banks and building societies from 2016 to 2017, with a similar story seen in insurance. Further, although the telephone remains


the most popular customer-service channel, it is also the most frustrating, with long delays before connection, calls not being returned, and staff unable to resolve queries on the first call. So, can self-serve technology address some of these challenges?


November 2017


Technology If your customers can get the answers they need without having to make a call, it is more convenient for them, and means your agents’ time can be reserved for more challenging cases. Self-serve typically refers to customers


proactively completing actions on your website or app, but a broader definition includes any communication with your firm in which the customer is in control. For example, an SMS-chat platform which allows your customers to text queries into


agents, receive responses, and reply when is convenient for them is preferable to having to wait on hold. This benefits both the customer and the


financial-services provider, because agents can handle multiple text conversations, whereas they can only manage a single telephone call – and because a record is kept of the messages on both sides. This is effective from a compliance, as well as a training perspective. A text-to-callback function, which allows


customers to text your company to request a call, might not, on the face of it, sound like a time-saving exercise, as an agent will need to be available to make the call. However, an automated response giving


the customer the ability to pick a time slot allows you to choose periods where your agents are typically more available to make calls, creating value on both sides.


AI’s increasing role to play Chatbots have evolved beyond a basic input- output solution with pre-defined answers, to AI-driven platforms using natural-language processing to provide detailed, accurate responses to almost any question. A report from [24]7 found that 39% of


The UK Customer Satisfaction Index reported a 13.8% increase in the number of escalated complaints to banks and building societies from 2016 to 2017, with a similar story in insurance


www.CCRMagazine.co.uk


consumers are willing to have automated conversations with chatbots, and this is likely to grow as the technology becomes more familiar.


Conclusion To conclude, it is worth noting this Forrester Research statistic: 77% of people say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good service. CCR


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