CCR2 Compliance
Digitally speaking
Modern technology allowing customers to communicate as they wish promises a strong future for compliance and customer benefit
Peter Mounsey Head of information systems, Hoist Finance
Speak to any of the major high-street banks and lenders, and all will tell you of their continued investment in digital technology to further enhance the customer experience and reduce their costs. The same is true of those in the debt purchase and debt collection sector. Most would agree in the world of
collections there are three principal drivers to deploying a digital strategy: to reduce the cost to collect; to improve the collections performance through enhanced customer engagement; and to improve the customer journey. It is generally understood that most customers would prefer not to talk to an agent in a call centre about their debt, if they have the option to self–serve through a portal or interact digitally this would be their preference. In addition, the smartphone is becoming
the mechanism through which many customers want to communicate with third parties. This is certainly true for us, where today 70% of our customers that interact with us through our online portal do so via a smartphone. Providing the ability for a customer to
self-serve and to digitally interact leads to customers engaging who would not normally do so by allowing them to engage in a way they feel more comfortable with. There is evidence too that such payments
are more sustainable, primarily because the customer has engaged directly and has felt empowered to provide their information and make decisions in a less stressful environment.
Self-serve portal The concept of ‘self-serve’ is not a new one but it is now very much coming into play. Prior to the launch of a new dedicated
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self-serve portal in 2017, only around 5% or 6% of collections were managed through our website. Today, that figure has reached 26% of all collections and the percentage of customers electing to use the portal on new portfolio purchases is as high as 40%. We expect, by the end of 2019, to have
35% to 40% of all collections being through the portal as we continue to enhance the functionality and customer experience with additional features including settlement self– serve and document upload and download.
is within the self-serve environment through choice, they can choose to stay within it without having to revert to the call centre to manage their accounts. This will include providing functionality that is tailored to all customer needs.
Digital omni-channel communication ‘Omni-channel’ is a term that has been casually associated with operational strategy for the last five years, but, until recently there have been few truly omni-channel journeys within the financial services let alone collections sector. The retail industry has applied ‘omni’ so
There are similarly no clear trends in terms of social demographics possibly, and simply, because regardless of age or wealth, everybody has a mobile telephone
Drilling down into those statistics reveals
some interesting and perhaps counter- intuitive facts. Whereas one might expect the millennial generation, for example, to be the demographic most likely to communicate through a digital channel, there is, in fact, little differentiation between how the ‘young’ and the ‘old’ engage. There are similarly no clear trends in
terms of social demographics possibly, and simply, because, regardless of age or wealth, everybody has a mobile telephone, and accesses online services from banking through to retail frequently. We are looking to enhance the digital experience to the point that once a customer
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well that it has become an intrinsic part of the shopping experience, in store or online. It is so commonplace, in everyday business- to-consumer transactions, that our customers take it for granted and they expect us to offer these solutions. The quickest way to disengage your
customer is to not offer the ability for them to complete their transaction in their channel of choice. In addition, with new emerging
technologies, SMS will start to be superseded by GSM for RCS, Apple Business Chat, and WhatsApp for business. In addition, in-line messaging will change how call-to- actions for websites will be achieved.
Digital automation and AI Digital has given rise to a new vernacular within our sector: ‘chatbots’, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning. Online, automated two-way messaging via chatbots is a useful tool, but it needs to serve customers meaningfully for information requests, or customer-service- related items. The ability to provide automated AI-driven chatbots behind web
June 2019
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