CHALLENGE

  • Our client had an established policy of 10% risk-based checking of new business submitted by their financial advisers. Through dialogue and discussions with the regulator, the requirement changed from the risk-based approach to 100% checking for an initial period.
  • A qualification criterion was applied to determine when competent advisers could revert to the initial check levels.
  • The aim was to identify weaknesses and inefficiencies within the function and help drive through new policies and processes to support the requirements of the adviser population.
  • We were required to provide the resources and support to the client. We were challenged to identify and engage 165 level 3 qualified financial services consultants and establish a fully managed service in three weeks.

ACTION

  • We provided senior manager on-site support with the client’s key stakeholders to review the issues and find a solution. We recruited 165 financial services consultants and ensured they were referenced, engaged and confirmed to start the training within 3 weeks of the initial request.
  • Senior managers were present throughout the training period, on multiple sites, to assist the client trainers and provide support to our resources. The resources completed the training and embarked on a route to competency; any weaknesses in resourcing quality were quickly identified and managed so that the client was provided with a competent, dynamic team.
  • Individuals were subject to ongoing quality checks and were assessed to undertake a number of different functions including: customer contact, adviser appeals, remedial action checks, quality assurance and verification of new business. The flexibility of these multi-skilled resources provided the client with the dynamics required to ensure that all actions agreed with the regulator were delivered effectively and efficiently.
  • To drive productivity and quality in each area, service levels were agreed and then reviewed by the project board on a fortnightly basis.
  • We worked with our client to ensure the appropriate processes, methodologies and values were consistently adopted by the project team. This helped ensure a positive experience for the end customer.

RESULT

  • Our resourcing and management approach delivered a fully flexible multi-site function, providing capacity to verify the advice provided for 25,000+ customer interviews per month.
  • The MI provided confirmation that 100% of customer contact was checked during the period agreed with the regulator.
  • This is an ongoing project so the final outcomes are not yet known. However, early indications suggest that there will be a phased implementation of a return to a risk-based quality checking for advisers, with our head count reducing at this point.
  • A number of our resources have been asked to support different parts of the client’s customer offering.