Equity release firm adopts speech analytics platform to improve ability to identify and support vulnerable customers.
Equity release pioneer Key today revealed it is working with speech analytics platform Aveni.ai as it seeks to build on its award-winning customer service with artificial intelligence. The strategic partnership embeds Aveni.ai at the heart of Key’s customer interactions – monitoring conversations with AI to improve the later life lending specialist’s ability to identify and support vulnerable customers in a cost effective and intelligent manner. Key is the first later life lending company in the UK to adopt Aveni.ai to support vulnerable customers.
From a business efficiency perspective, Key is also working with Aveni.ai to support improved advisor training and oversight processes, as well as boost quality assurance processes. The first phase of the rollout has already delivered compelling results, with Key’s quality assessors able to conduct call assessments in less than half the time due to the platform’s intuitive search options.
“We embrace innovation at Key, and our partnership with Aveni.ai demonstrates our commitment to using technology to consistently improve the quality of our advice, and ensure we continue to lead the market in how we support our clients,” said Will Hale, CEO of Key. “Beyond efficiency, this partnership will allow us to drive greater transparency and oversight, and help us to better identify vulnerable and other high risk customers, all of which contribute towards ensuring the best possible outcomes for our customers.”
Customer vulnerability is a leading concern for financial services companies, as per the recent guidance from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, which stipulates that firms must act to understand the needs of vulnerable customers and make sure they are treated fairly. With this in mind, Key is continuing to work with Aveni.ai to build out its customer vulnerability processes, with the goal of using this guidance to make its vulnerability framework as transparent and robust as possible.
Historically, identifying customer vulnerability or those who are at high risk has been the role of an agent, requiring them to flag a potential issue for further investigation. By using Aveni.ai to monitor all its conversations with customers, specific keywords and phrases can be automatically flagged and routed to the compliance team at Key for review. For example, certain topics mentioned in conversations with an agent, such as a bereavement or illness, may be indications that a customer is potentially vulnerable and requires support from one of Key’s “vulnerability champions.”
Leveraging advanced natural language processing (NLP) technology, Aveni.ai takes a unique approach to customising its platform for its clients – drawing on information about their customers, culture, products and processes to deliver highly accurate results. For example, in the banking sector, a customer is generally considered potentially vulnerable when over the age of 65. However, given Key’s focus on retirement finance, this would pertain to a majority of its customers, so it has configured Aveni.ai to monitor for different criteria.
“Every company is unique, and off-the-shelf speech analytics tools often deliver less than optimal results, so we start by understanding the specific problems our customers are trying to solve,” said Joseph Twigg, CEO of Aveni. “It’s great to work with a company like Key that truly cares about its clients and recognises that innovative solutions can help improve customer service and ultimately unlock a wealth of new intelligence and insight.”
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