Insights

5 obstacles to good consumer outcomes – and how to fix them

The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Consumer Duty regulation has set a benchmark for financial firms, emphasizing the need to deliver good consumer outcomes. While the initial deadlines for compliance have now passed, the FCA has made it clear that Consumer Duty is not a ‘once and done’ exercise. Firms must continue to demonstrate improvements, ensuring their products, services, and processes drive positive results for customers.

However, achieving these outcomes can feel easier said than done. Research by MoneyHub suggests that as of July 2024, 41% of customers still haven’t noticed any changes to their treatment since Consumer Duty was introduced in July 2023.

So there’s plenty of opportunity for improvement. So, what is preventing organizations from truly embracing Consumer Duty? Below, we explore five key challenges – and how to overcome them.

1. Legacy systems and disparate data

Many financial services firms operate on outdated legacy systems that weren’t built for the modern, data-driven regulatory environment. These systems often don’t communicate well with newer platforms, leading to fragmented data and an incomplete view of the customer.

Solution: You’ll need to bite the bullet at some stage, so it’s time to prioritize system integration and modernization. Middleware solutions can enable different systems to share data more effectively. Investing in scalable, cloud-based technology like evaluagent can help demonstrate compliance with evolving regulations.

2. Red tape that blocks new systems

Internal bureaucracy and risk aversion often slow down efforts to introduce new technology. The financial services industry in particular is prone to prolonged approval processes and resistance to change, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities for improvement.

Solution: Consumer Duty requires Board oversight, so this should be one of the easier challenges to overcome. Foster a culture of innovation by aligning change initiatives with regulatory requirements and demonstrating clear ROI. Ensure compliance teams and decision-makers understand the long-term benefits of adopting modern solutions that help reduce the strain on teams and the business as a whole.

3. Unrepresentative data and limited sample sizes

Survey data and customer feedback are valuable, but relying solely on these sources can lead to skewed insights. Limited sample sizes or self-selection bias may result in you making decisions that don’t accurately reflect your broader customer base.

Solution: Leverage predictive Voice of the Customer (VoC) insights. Generative AI can help you combine quantitative and qualitative data in real-time, saving your team the admin time of crunching the data, and guaranteeing a more representative understanding of your customer needs. It’s a win-win.

4. Drowning in data, but lacking insight

The opposite of the previous problem, many firms collect vast amounts of data but struggle to extract meaningful insights. Without a centralized approach, data often sits in separate systems, making it difficult to make meaningful decisions. Plus, without an interface that helps you zero-in on the important information, you’re stuck with a lot of data, but no way of using it to make an impact.

Solution: You don’t need to hire a team of data scientists. Implement intelligent analytics and AI-driven tools to transform raw data into actionable insights. With clear dashboards and reports that focus on your priorities, you can identify trends, measure impact, and refine strategies to enhance consumer outcomes.

5. Data silos

From Marketing teams, to contact centers, to user experience teams, every one of your teams will have data that can contribute to your overall understanding of the customer experience. But a lack of collaboration can stunt improvement efforts. Without seamless internal data sharing, you run the risk of not fixing problems efficiently and failing to meet regulation standards.

Solution: Encourage cross-functional collaboration to significantly enhance decision-making and service delivery. 

Let’s take a simple example. Your agents are receiving a high number of requests to update their address. Sharing this information with your web/UX team, there’s potential to make this an online self-service option to save customers time, and reduce calls going to your contact center.

Use that same principle with a wider lens of the potential and listen to your customers – they’ll soon be delighted at the positive outcomes you’re able to drive. 

Get on top of compliance with evaluagent

Naturally, overcoming these obstacles requires the right technology and approach. You’ll need to cover the cultural transformation, but we can help you with the technology.

Our quality intelligence platform, evaluagentCX, empowers you with:

By combining these key elements, evaluagent makes it easier for you to demonstrate and drive progress under Consumer Duty. The result? More informed decisions, better consumer outcomes, and a stronger, more resilient financial services industry.

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