The Bank and CFH Docmail Limited (CFH) have been partners for over 14 years, working together to deliver a wide range of client communication processes. Initially starting with paper-based communications, CFH printed and posted their client applications for credit cards and loans.
This paper-based process allowed The Bank the ability to track credit card and loan applications and send subsequent chasing documentation that encouraged application completion, through a bespoke CFH solution that had been designed for this traditional process.
However, the bank identified that there was a need to digitally transform, in particular for some of their more complex application processes where drop-out was significant and a step change in customer engagement and conversion was required in order to stay competitive.
With the market growing and new financial organisations entering that market, The Bank experienced a decrease in credit card and loan conversions due to the time it took for applications to be approved, processed and issued, through their traditional process.
The Bank’s competitors were offering a range of fast-track online alternatives, meaning loans and credit cards were approved very quickly by comparison. The Bank identified this gap in its offering and believed that re-engineering its service delivery was going to be critical if it wanted to continue to be competitive in the marketplace and maintain its market share.
Already working with CFH, The Bank approached them seeking an alternative method of engaging with their clients, one that would dramatically improve both their customer experience and conversion rate while minimising integration overhead and change within the Bank’s enterprise.
With extensive experience in delivering digital transformation for clients, CFH worked with The Bank to deliver a perfect bespoke solution for them.
With a tight time frame to deliver results, CFH worked around the clock to generate a transformation plan that covered the critical areas of solution design, rapid prototyping, pilot deployment and live roll-out. And a solution that went from prototype to pilot to live in production within 6 months - slashing the typical “new product to market” time for the Bank down from 2 years.
The key to the design was the requirement to minimise integration overhead which saw CFH leverage a parallel platform that would work in tandem with existing banking systems to enable The Bank to accelerate its loan and credit card onboarding through the use of a set of online portals - one targeting the acceleration of issuing digital agreements and the other focused on accelerating customer conversion.
The new “paperless” platform supported the processing of retail loans and credit applications by providing an online portal for customers to view and sign their agreements. Customers could manage their application in a 3-step process - log in, complete the application and receive confirmation. Whilst the portal deployed for The Bank allowed staff to generate, issue and track the applications flowing through the platform as well as seamlessly dovetail completed applications back into existing legacy banking processes with remarkably lightweight IT integration. Furthermore, the Bank portal was accessible across the entire banking group, through secure online access which allowed them to also leverage the platform as part of their in-branch service delivery.
By partnering with CFH as their Digital Transformation partner, The Bank was able to dramatically reduce its time-to-market while making a transition from a legacy engagement model to a truly omnichannel end customer engagement that was driven by insight.
The benefits of the partnership included:
Their relationships with clients grew from strength to strength through the streamlined processes and the bank was able to offer loans and credit cards in a fraction of the time it took previously, with even complex applications now processing and completing within 24-48 hours. In addition to this customer satisfaction significantly increased thanks to the improved customer journey and data-driven communications which in turn saw a significant reduction in customer queries and call centre load.
Implementing the solution within the 3-6 month time frame, compared to the Bank’s typical time scale of several years, ensured that the Bank was able to grow its market share in a highly competitive market while still making considerable savings over its traditional model. It also allowed them a time-to-market advantage over competitors, not just on the initial roll-out but on successive product launches that were able to leverage the same platform.
The results of this new approach to customer communications were startling, with an increase in client conversion through their sign-up process from 28% up to 78% combined with a reduction in their average project roll-out time from 18-24 months to 3-6 months and all at a fraction of the cost associated with typical projects within the bank and all thanks to CFH’s digital transformation expertise.
