Location/Country
Global
Delivering large scale customer-focused business transformation
International Personal Finance (IPF) is a global purpose-led financial services company that provides millions of people with unsecured and affordable credit and insurance products. The company’s agent-delivered business model and home service is a unique and trusted loan provision system that supports the financial inclusion of communities globally. IPF’s customer representatives are trusted, local and empathetic members of their communities who have a genuine desire to help customers.
The Challenge
In an ever-evolving digital world, many players in the unsecured home loans space are moving away from the in-person agent model. IPF, on the other hand, has always believed that the agent-customer relationship is vital to its work – it gives IPF a real competitive edge. A customer-focused approach drives improved business performance, attracts more customers, improves customer retention and satisfaction, and enhances the brand’s reputation.
IPF therefore developed a customer experience programme designed to encourage everyone at IPF to put the customer first at all times. However, it was recognised that this would only be possible if everyone had an in-depth understanding of the customers’ needs and expectations at every step of the journey.
”I am pleased to report our relentless focus on meeting our customers’ needs combined with strong cost control and good capital management, has driven a very positive financial and operational performance in 2023.
Gerard Ryan, Chief Executive Officer at International Personal Finance
IPF entrusted CGA with this challenge. Leveraging our Heartbeat® programme within their home loans division, we developed Think Customer, an initiative that embodied their purpose (Building a Better World Through Financial Inclusion) for employees. We also launched a data-driven customer experience improvement programme.
We helped IPF understand that customers need to feel in control; they want to be treated with respect, transparency, and dignity, and not as a case determined by risk assessment. Gábor Fülöp, Marketing Director at Provident (the name under which IPF markets its home loans in Hungary and other countries) believes this is why CGA’s help has been so useful – through CGA’s understanding of the customer experience, IPF is able to focus its energy on the most important touchpoints in the customer journey.
Using our learnings, we then delivered a full transformation programme in Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic. We also helped IPF develop a Customer Strategy and Customer Promise.
The Results
Early successes in the pilot countries encouraged the executive team to establish Heartbeat® as the company-wide measure of customer experience, and the programme was extended to Poland and Mexico.
Of course, nothing stands still, so to monitor the impact of the changes to the company’s strategy, we conducted a Heartbeat® refresh in 2023.
Digital loans represent a significant potential revenue stream, so in 2024 the Heartbeat® programme was extended to the digital arm of the business in Poland, Mexico, Australia, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.
All the cross-territorial data can be accessed via the KPI dashboard we designed specifically for IPF. This can be used to explore the needs of its customers in greater depth, and ensures that customer metrics are considered alongside traditional numbers such as debt recovery and sales when management decisions are being made.
While there are differences between markets, it soon became apparent that there are many commonalities and the teams in each market began learning from each other, each contributing different parts of the puzzle. For example, the customer service standards were developed by the Romanian team and implemented across all markets.
As a true strategic partner, CGA remains committed to supporting IPF.
In 2025, we will run another Heartbeat® refresh across Romania, Hungary, Poland, Mexico and the Czech Republic to ascertain the year-on-year progress in customer experience and current challenges.
We are also expanding this initiative to IPF’s customer representatives (agents) to identify current strengths, pain points and opportunities for improvement. Our goal is to support IPF’s ambition to enhance the agent experience, reduce churn and attract a broader pool of talent to the business.
IPF’s recent business performance has been strong and IPF CEO Gerard Ryan attributes this success to their customer-focused strategy. The company has also acquired extra funding, enabling it to work on improving the customer experience it offers still further.
”First, thank you very much for the whole project and the synthesis and preparation of this and the meeting. For me, it's very valuable. I thought, at the beginning, that it's not going to be actionable and conclusive, but the worries are gone totally because it looks like a ready action plan.
Piotr Bubak, IPF Digital, The Solution
Based on customer feedback, 2023 service quality performance has already exceeded 2021 performance at almost all customer touch points in all countries.
IPF’s Think Customer strategy has resulted in 91% customer satisfaction, and a Net Promoter Score of +69
Provident were also awarded silver medals in both the ‘Personal Customer Service’ and the ‘Call Center’ categories further reinforcing the organisations dedication and excellence in customer experience.
Common success has been accredited to CGA’s support in pain point analysis and the resulting Think Customer Programme.
by ForgetWP®