Posted on: 15/12/2022
The Financial Conduct Authority’s Consumer Duty is leaving organisations scrambling to ensure timely compliance as they head towards the July 2023 deadline. Is technology the silver bullet?
Despite the 31 October deadline for approving implementation plans now past, a staggering two thirds(1) of banks and building societies are confident that they are not yet compliant. The bigger problem? It’s not just the issue of becoming compliant, but the question on many firms’ lips is how to become compliant.
An uphill battle to prove the ‘customer-first’ mentality
Consumer Duty has been hailed as a game-changing regulation for firms as the FCA moves to data-first supervision and expectations of risk assurance and quality fundamentally shift. However, organisations across the board are having real challenges creating implementation plans, validating definitions of the ‘good outcomes’ the duty requires, and proving evidence of appropriate action, support, and compliance. Even more startling, is that one in ten(2) of decision makers said they aren’t even aware about the new regulation, despite the looming deadline.
Let technology do the heavy lifting
The amount of data needed on the customer to comply with Consumer Duty requires a new level of operation for most businesses, but there is a clear opportunity here. The FCA has said it is critical for firms to accurately monitor and analyse customer data to drive improvements in both service and customer understanding and outcomes. And, with its comprehensive monitoring and analytics capabilities, data-driven conversational intelligence has already been propelling itself into the spotlight as an essential tool for maintaining compliance and uncovering rich customer insights.
Step 1: Making the business case for speech analytics
It’s easy to appreciate the baseline financial benefits of avoiding fines, but there is more impactful business case to be made. The Consumer Duty provides firms with a springboard to the broader outcomes available through speech analytics by adding value to both customer service, agent experience, training, and governance disciplines - accelerating timescales and bolstering business cases for the adoption of this technology. The impact on the bottom line is also significant. More than 65%(3) of customers see elements of speech analytics solutions – such as real-time interactions - as a must for enhancing their customer experience. These positive experiences increase loyalty which, in turn, means more revenue, lower CPA (cost per acquisition) and CRC (customer retention costs).
Step 2: Investing in the right technology
The right technology is vital for enabling the desired impacts, and firms should look to solutions that monitor and analyse 100% of their conversational data to support Consumer Duty obligations. For example, speech analytics empowers firms with immeasurably more coverage across customer interactions, a better understanding of root causes, and a far broader pool of ideas and suggestions to draw on when designing customer-facing innovations or remediations. In fact, 43%(4) of firms are planning on using these technologies to access customer data and insights in order to adhere with the Consumer Duty regulation.
Step 3: Translate insights into actions
Positive customer outcomes are at the heart of the FCA’s Consumer Duty regulation and this presents a huge test to companies who position themselves as customer-first: now they really need to show it. Using voice data to measure customer satisfaction, risk, agent behaviours, and identify areas of friction in the customer journey allows firms to understand the cause of customer complaints and not just the symptoms. Moving from person-centric supervision to data-first evidence provides an improved understanding of customer outcomes, the factors that affect them over time, and what remedial action has been taken so you are ready for the regulator.
Do you need help with your Consumer Duty plans?
By embedding voice-AI in the heart of customer operations, firms are presented with a broader future-proofing opportunity to improve their processes, power business growth, and ensure they meet a wide-range of regulatory responsibilities.
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