Some 46 per cent of financial service businesses wished they had gained greater board level leadership and representation on customer outcomes in the first year of consumer duty compliance.
The study by customer experience services provider ArvatoConnect, revealed a greater scope for customer outcomes to be represented at board level to support compliance with consumer duty regulations and to align with FCA best-practice guidance.
It also found 44 per cent of firms had attempted to change their culture to comply with the regulations by increasing board-level focus on customer outcomes.
Only 3 per cent of the businesses polled believed there was nothing more they needed to do for compliance.
The large majority (42 per cent) said customer outcomes had moderately improved, with 27 per cent saying they had significantly improved.
While 22 per cent believed things had only marginally improved and 10 per cent admitted outcomes had stayed the same.
Overall, 85 per cent agreed consumer duty had improved their business’ performance, compared to 3 per cent who said it had worsened performance.
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 budgets to mitigate cost pressures.”
Technology
The study also found how businesses felt they needed to adopt new technology such as AI and automation (51 per cent), to enhance their data analytics (45 per cent) and to revise compliance policies (37 per cent) for compliance and to enhance customer outcomes further.
While 29 per cent also believed they needed to move focus away from AI and to provide more human contact to better support customers.
Managing increased costs was the biggest challenge businesses said they had faced, and will continue to face, in complying with the duty, according to the poll.
“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’. Success relies on businesses defining clear objectives for what processes need to be improved, designing a solution that’s fit for purpose, developing a bespoke solution, and taking a people first approach to its deployment,” Towner added.
alina.khan@ft.com
