The COVID-19 pandemic has already resulted in severe economic consequences, despite Canada having yet to see the peak of the virus, which is predicted to hit sometime between late spring and early fall. The Canadian economy shed one million jobs in March, which led to a surge in demand for relevant financial information and assistance among customers of financial institutions.
Our Capco consultants have worked with financial institutions in Canada across all business units to offer support and deliver projects involving digital strategy, data strategy and analytics, and even SR&ED investigations. The result of our experiences within these organizations gives Capco a unique perspective into what could be the next step to addressing financial institutions’ most pressing COVID-19 challenges.
More than three million Canadians have applied for jobless benefits and emergency income aid. Now more than ever, financial institutions need to support these clients ─ not just by providing quick access to customer service but giving customers the tools required to make financial decisions in a responsible and timely manner. If customers are unable to access the right information to take appropriate actions, the resulting repercussions could include defaulted mortgage loans, or worse, personal bankruptcy.
The challenges that financial institutions are facing as a result of COVID-19 are numerous, but the lack of capacity within contact centers to deal with the increased volume of calls has been particularly hard for businesses to deal with. The capacity shortfall is resulting in long wait times, and a lack of accessible information for employees to guide and advise consumers on how best to manage their unique financial situations.
Customers want to better understand their personal finances during these uncertain times, and the inability to quickly access information and assistance from their financial institutions is resulting in the rise of customer dissatisfaction. Financial institutions looking to resolve the contact center issue need to tackle this particular challenge with thoughtful execution.
Capco’s financial assistance solution enables financial institutions to deliver the right tools quickly and effectively while reducing the burden on contact centers. Customers will have the ability not only to calculate and understand the financial impacts of the changes made but the ability to make these requests and decisions without leaving home.
Our recommendation on how to address this particular challenge for COVID-19 and beyond the pandemic includes a solution with a multi-faceted approach. It is clear that financial institutions will require digital request management capabilities that enable rapid and streamlined processing of customer requests. The proposed plan of action consists of three components:
1. Public site – The site helps consumers access financial assistance resources and request services from their financial institution. This includes calculation tools, allowing customers to view the real financial impact of deferrals and other changes to their finances before submitting requests.
2. Operations portal – The portal helps employees manage prioritized client service requests in real-time, utilize a powerful search tool to easily look up information, integrated digital document capture and storage, and detailed request status with history tracking.
3. Admin portal – With this portal, financial institutions can select and configure service request templates, including data, process steps, manual tasks, rules, and calculations.
Response times are critical during this pandemic as the situation changes by the hour. Our financial assistance solution allows for a rapid rollout of new service request types to meet new customer demands within days, and for real-time changes to existing rules and logic to adapt as requirements evolve. Advanced request prioritization algorithms ensure the most critical requests are serviced first, and requests are dynamically routed to specialist service agents to optimize support. Service level agreement tracking and monitoring allow for real-time transparency of client requests and issues.
To request a demonstration of Capco’s Financial Assistance solution or to request further information, please contact solutions@capco.com. Alternatively, complete the form below and a member of the team will be in touch.