Develop Life - People, Project, Knowledge

Case Study - Customer Service Set-Up

A major UK bank wanted to create a new "challenger" bank by separating a significant number of its branches, cards and customers into a new bank with a new identity.

This was a particularly complex programme of activity, with the added complexity of an outsource service provider which had been appointed to support the end to end credit card customer service operation

Overview and approach

Peter Venn was recruited by the Outsource Delivery Partner as lead Project Manager, with the remit of working closely with the bank's own project team. He was recruited because of his experience in key areas of:

  • Programme and Project Management
  • Setting up and managing contact centres
  • Contact Centre technology and telephony
  • Client management
  • Financial Services.

Immediately, Peter found that Client communication and engagement was to be a key-critical component of successful delivery, especially as so many decisions still needed to be taken by the Client, leaving uncertainty in many key areas of the programme.

Working internally with the Service Delivery Partner and Client, it was clear that a robust governance structure was needed in order to keep transparency and open communications through a challenging time.

Programme Approach and Methodology

Peter led the programme through the Discovery Phase and up to the point of hand-off to the Commercial Contracts teams. During that period, Peter and the team agreed a complete set of deliverables in workstreams that included:

  • Applications Processing
  • Customer Service (Front and Back Office)
  • Collections and Recoveries
  • Complaints Management
  • Disputes and Chargebacks
  • Financial Operations
  • Fraud Strategy and Operations
  • Compliance
  • Management Information
  • Training
  • Facilities
  • Infrastructure
  • Forecasting and Planning
  • Recruitment
  • BAU set-up
  • Testing
  • Telephony and IVR
  • Brand and Product Strategy
  • Channel Management.

Following this, the outsourced Subject Matter Experts launched deep dives into each workstream area to understand, then document, all (350 plus) processes, in order to achieve a common understanding of the joint Target Operating Model

Outcome

One of the challenges of this programme was undoubtedly the changing scope of the Client's requirement for service delivery. As a result, an agreed Target Operating Model was crucial in order for the programme to baseline and invoke robust change management.

Once in place, the programme was able to move forward and document processes down to "level 5" (working instructions) level. In addition, once the IT and Telephony architecture had been agreed, we were able to go ahead and procure a number of systems and IVR technology from 3rd party suppliers.

The "Discovery" now delivered, the Client bank, when ready to move forward to the next stage of the programme, can do so assured that all areas of the outsourcer's delivery plan is ready and fully-compliant.

Other Case Studies

More recent projects led by, or with significant contribution from Peter Venn, our senior consultant.

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