The FCA’s Consumer Duty has now been published and marks one of the biggest shakeups in standards for financial organisations in a decade.
Its aim. To shift the culture of financial organisations to one that puts the customer firmly at the heart of everything – from product design and pricing to communication and support.
For financial services brands these new regulations are a chance to further strengthen their relationships with customers, build trust, increase loyalty and create future revenue opportunities – especially within customer communications.
At Signal we believe Consumer Duty will require organisations to fundamentally shift the strategy of how communications are planned, designed and measured to become truly customer focussed. The shift can be described as one:
From: Customer Communications Management (CCM) – where the focus is on the accuracy and efficiency of managing and delivering a communication output.
To: Customer Experience Management (CXM) – where the focus is on gaining customer insight and applying it to communications, so customers are equipped to make effective decisions and achieve their financial objectives.
The good outcomes the FCA want to see fall into four areas:
And within these outcomes are detailed rules that will enable financial organisations to raise the bar and create the shift in customer experience the regulator is seeking.
This is the FCA outcome focused on customer communications. It is here that we find rules and guidance to help create and deploy communications that support customers and enable them to make informed decisions about their financial products and services.
What the FCA want to see from organisations in this area:
At Signal we work with some of the UK’s biggest financial brands, delivering millions of customer communications every year. And since the FCA started work on Consumer Duty we’ve been helping them to understand the scope and scale of change they will need to undertake in response. Key areas of conversation have been around: