If you’re a financial brand founded in 1864 like Yorkshire Building Society (YBS), the way you communicate with customers has already seen significant change. But with the advent of open banking and the rising tide of fintech startups and challenger banks, the pressure has never been greater to move with the times — to meet the needs of a new generation of digitally-native prospects, while continuing to serve the existing customers who are still regarded as ‘members’ of a mutual society.
Partnering with Olive has enabled YBS to successfully cross the chasm, and attract new customers while meeting the needs of their loyal membership, with rapid access to new digital contact technology. As Colin Campbell, Olive Digital Transformation & Cloud Managed Services Specialist, explained, “they’re having to keep up with the modern consumer and deliver new functionality in a cost effective way, and they have the burden of legacy infrastructure that the digital disruptors do not. The challenge is to set them up for future, so that they can effectively compete in that space.”
Mutual benefit means win-win
The mutuality of YBS where they talk about colleagues and members might feel very different to corporate cut and thrust, but it’s actually a powerful value driver when it comes to providing excellence in customer service, and as such makes the adoption of the latest digital contact centre tools an obvious step — for an organisation committed to making all of its customers happy, without losing its essential character and approach.
For example, while ensuring frictionless authentication and rapid resolution for online and voice enquiries, Olive is supporting YBS in maintaining in-branch services that mature customers expect and depend on. Only they’re doing it in a digitally-enabled way, as Campbell continued, “they’re increasing the efficiency of branches by investing in tech there, such as supporting video consultations in-branch with a subject matter expert for specialist products like mortgage applications”.
That’s a great example of the strategic deployment of communications technology in a customer-centric way, which Olive has helped YBS and other financial services clients to implement due to their continual business improvement partnership approach — identifying a combination of easy-win tactics for rapid improvement, alongside more complex programs of improvement aligned with the business objectives of their clients — such as improving on a very specific metric like debt recovery rates. Because, as Campbell pointed out,
“There are lots of providers out there who will just resell some cloud technology, but won’t have the capabilities and experience to provide that ongoing managed service and consultancy to help the customer achieve against their business objectives”
“We’ve already done the heavy lifting for our customers to pre-package services which they can use as part of Olive’s Cloud Managed Service Platform, or choose to build on further with our help – but they also need the advice and technical expertise to smoothly implement that within their organisation. That’s where we focus.”
As industry-level disruptions on the scale of open banking roll out to other sectors such as insurance before long, the need for specialist partners to implement the right digital transformation at the right time will become even more paramount — especially for brands who care the most about their customers, old and new. And the more the technology transforms, the more the underlying values of service and mutual benefit win out, in industries where trust and loyalty really matters.
