AI-driven speech analytics help financial services manage vulnerability

Summary

What this article covers in 30 seconds

The FCA expects vulnerable consumers to be treated fairly and achieve outcomes as good as other consumers.
Firms face two major challenges: spotting vulnerability and ensuring fair treatment after it is identified.
Human judgement remains critical because vulnerability depends on words, tone and customer circumstances.
Conversation Intelligence can monitor topics and risk points across customer interactions at scale.

Protecting vulnerable consumers remains a key focus for the FCA, making it important for financial services firms to get this right. The FCA has issued guidance to help ensure vulnerable consumers are treated fairly and achieve outcomes as good as other consumers.

Some firms have made significant progress, but improvements are required across sectors. Firms need to take proactive steps to understand and respond to customer needs, particularly for those most vulnerable to harm.

Customer vulnerability, what are the challenges?

Financial services organisations such as banks, building societies and insurers face two major concerns when dealing with customer vulnerability. The first is spotting vulnerability during customer interactions and identifying a potentially vulnerable customer.

Once vulnerability is identified, firms need to ensure the customer is treated fairly, with respect and dignity, and achieves a good outcome.

Recognising vulnerability, the key factors for consideration

Reliably recognising whether a person is potentially vulnerable from a typical financial services conversation relies on multiple factors.

The words and phrases used by the customer, for example “my dad died…”.
How the customer expressed themselves, including whether they sounded upset, angry or happy.
The subjective circumstances of that customer, including how close they were to their dad, whether they were financially reliant on them, whether the death was expected or sudden, whether it was recent or in the past, and whether other significant life events were happening.

Human interaction and a well-trained customer care team are critical to recognising such subjective elements and identifying potentially vulnerable customers. Once recognised, the firm then needs to ensure the customer receives appropriate care and fair treatment.

Dealing with vulnerable customers, monitoring the outcome

Financial services firms should aim to achieve the best outcome for all customers. The Covid-19 pandemic increased the focus on vulnerable customers, and firms are expected to take proactive action to drive fair treatment and good customer outcomes while the FCA keeps a close eye on practice.

Monitoring customer-agent interactions to provide insights, supervisory oversight and QA has become more important. With AI-driven speech monitoring and voice analytics technologies, firms have a feasible way to manage vulnerability across interactions.

Interactions monitoring, why is Conversation Intelligence useful?

Conversation Intelligence offers analytics and automation to break down customer interaction information at scale, using human review and machine learning. In this context, it allows firms to monitor and manage vulnerability by analysing interaction content against the firm’s processes and good practice.

Process adherence monitoring

Process adherence monitoring helps firms understand whether a vulnerable customer has been treated appropriately and fairly. Capture records, stores and analyses customer-agent interactions at scale so they can be reviewed consistently.

Key topics identification

Classify uses machine learning to identify topics in customer interactions that may relate to vulnerability. The monitored topics can be customised to a firm’s processes and good practice. Examples of conversation monitoring labels include bereavement, financial, age, health, employment, relationship and communication.

Conversation analysis

Assure can then analyse monitored topics for process adherence. Risk points might include whether the adviser or agent asked how the customer was feeling about a recent bereavement, suggested forwarding the customer to a bereavement team, suggested the customer consider having a third party present, or established that the customer could understand them with that third party.

Conversation Intelligence is built for the financial services sector to support firms in monitoring, managing and analysing 100% of interactions with vulnerable customers, and scaling their operations. Firms can use this approach to discuss vulnerable-customer interaction monitoring and management.