The Problem:

Our client had a long standing process in place to allow their customers to fill in a form online to make an offer of payment. These forms were picked up by a team, analysed and then a response was penned and returned to the customer.

Our analysis showed that, on average, it took twenty three and a half minutes to fill out the form on the website, it then took twelve and a half minutes for a member of the team to analyse the form and generate their response. We also found that, on average, 90% of the offers that were made online were accepted by the staff member.
 

The solution:

We decided to change the whole process; we first looked at the form from the customer’s point of view, determining their feeling and frame of mind when filling in the form. We wanted to change the customer’s perception when filling in the form - this likely would be one of the first interactions with the company - so would form the basis of their perceived customer journey. If the form was clunky and time consuming, they would expect future interactions to be similar.

We wanted to continue the gamification element we introduced in the Customer Portal by including a progress bar and different ways of entering the information, including sliders, so that the process didn’t feel too long. The outdated form was changed to an Affordability Calculator, to give the customer the impression that it was a tool for them to manage their finances, whilst giving our client the information they needed.

Our systems analyse the data submitted by the customer to determine the customer’s disposable income and suggests an acceptable repayment plan, using the same rules that would be applied in a manual review. If an offer is not deemed to be acceptable, the system will initiate a negotiation process to attempt to get the customer to an offer that is fair and mutually acceptable for both parties. Once this is completed, the customer will be redirected to a page to set up a direct debit.

We were able to streamline the process to enable our client’s customers to complete the form in less than 3 minutes. This enhances the customer experience and reduces the bounce rate of people not filling in the form.

With customers entering their personal data, our systems use the highest levels of security to ensure there are no breaches.

By tracking the progress of customers filling out the form, we know when any customer abandons the process. These customers can then be contacted individually to encourage them to convert. The information is also stored to the customer’s online account, should they wish to amend the information in the future.

This solution not only streamlines the entire process of customers making an offer of payment, it also reduces the costs to the business, as staff can be redeployed to tasks that are a more efficient use of time and the client’s customers have a better customer experience.