More than four fifths (85%) of financial services firms agree that the Consumer Duty has helped to improve their business performance, a new survey by ArvatoConnect has revealed.
This compares to just 3% of respondents who said that it had worsened performance.
Almost all (97%) of those surveyed said they were well prepared for the new regulation when it was introduced in July 2023, with more than three quarters (77%) acknowledging that they needed to move away from a culture that was focused on driving sales to one that was more focused on customer outcomes to comply with the regulations.
However, the customer experience services provider said nearly half (46%) of financial services businesses wished they had gained greater board level leadership and representation on customer outcomes when asked what they should have done differently in the first year of Consumer Duty compliance. The report showed that only 44% of businesses had increased board-level focus on customer outcomes, with a number of firms relying on their programme teams or risk and compliance to drive change.
James Towner, chief growth officer at ArvatoConnect, said: “The sector has commendably moved mountains to overhaul cultures for the benefit of customer outcomes and Consumer Duty compliance.
“Huge progress has been made but it’s a well-recognised business paradigm that company culture is set from the top. Directors’ biggest regret was not securing board-level representation for customer outcomes earlier. This will be key to helping customer service directors to balance competing customer and business performance priorities to unlocking budget to mitigate cost pressures and to get the blessing of CIOs and CTOs for implementing CX transformation technologies as they look ahead to the second year of the Duty.”
According to the survey, more than a quarter (27%) of businesses said they are confident that outcomes have significantly improved for customers, while 42% say customer outcomes have moderately improved. Just over a fifth (22%) said they had seen marginal improvement, while 10% said outcomes have stayed the same.
The results of the survey also revealed a growing desire among firms to adopt new technology such as AI and automation (51%) to improve their data analytics and revise compliance policies.
Towner added: “There are growing opportunities for businesses to improve outcomes with a considered approach to AI. Automating quality assurance and using generative AI to summarise customer interactions are helping to boost customer service agents’ productivity while driving upskilling and training.
“There’s also a great opportunity for CX directors to join up their data and to ensure it is robust enough to underpin the systems that interact with consumers, as any disjoint with the data could ultimately deliver the opposite of a good customer outcome. Crucially, a large part of improving customer outcomes is about using technology at the right times, in the right places, what we call ‘digital orchestration’.”
