Consumer Duty Consultation | FCA Consumer Duty Regulation Act Advisors

To ensure compliance with the Four Outcomes of the FCA Consumer Duty Act and deliver an exceptional customer experience, firms must implement a comprehensive approach to measuring and evidencing Four Outcome and overall Consumer Duty performance.

IIC Consumer Duty measurement and evidencing solutions fall in to a handful of categories:

Essential: Get an overview of our Four Outcome customer outcomes assessment for your Board Report and ongoing monitoring. Measure your customer outcomes directly against the Four Outcomes, new vs long-term customers, highest risk journeys and department or function. Includes NPS scoring in a one-off but repeatable approach – £5,000 + VAT.
Real-time Journey Based: Customer journey touchpoints aligned to the Four Outcomes of Consumer Duty with automated surveying – cost dependent on programme size.

Four Outcome Assessment: One off (but repeatable) email survey to group of customers identifying stage in product life cycle, and asking about company performance vs one or all of Four Outcomes - cost dependent on programme size – £7,000 + VAT.
Consumer Document Testing: Document understanding testing through email surveys showing customers documents to test clarity, and ask for feedback – £3,500 + VAT per document.
IIC 360 Consumer Duty Assessment: IIC’s traditional 360 Gold/Silver/Bronze assessment with the addition of Consumer Duty specific questions – cost dependent on programme size.
Internal Gap Analysis: Analysis through an internal survey around how well organisation performs vs key business drivers of Consumer Duty – £5,000 + VAT.

Get in touch with Investor in Customers if you want to learn how we can help your business measure and evidence its Consumer Duty and Four Outcome performance...

Consumer Duty is the new framework that dictates the level of care regulated firms must provide, ensuring they act in the interests of consumers through the full life cycle of the products or services they offer.

It is comprised of a Consumer Principle defining overall standards, three Cross Cutting Rules defining an expected structure of behaviours, and Four Outcomes that all consumers should expect:

graphic-explaining-consumer-duty

Regulated firms will have to be ready for the upcoming deadlines below:

Apr 2023: Firms must must have finished their review of new and existing open products and services.
Jul 2023: Firms must be able to evidence compliance vs new and existing products and services.
Jul 2024: Firms must be able to evidence compliance vs closed book products and services.

NPS / CSAT / CES can't directly evidence the experience you offer versus the Cross Cutting Rules or Four Outcomes of Consumer Duty, and traditional methods of assessment need updating.

Our short explainer below from IIC Director James Edmonds explains the Consumer Duty basics you need to know:

Requirement:

To achieve Outcome 1 of the FCA Consumer Duty Act, firms must ensure that their products and services are fit for purpose. This means designing products and services that meet the needs of their target consumers and that work as expected.

Resolution:

Firms should ensure that the terms and conditions of their products and services are transparent, easily understood, and do not contain any unfair or misleading terms. They should also provide clear and accurate information about the features and benefits of their products and services.

Requirement:

To achieve Outcome 2 of the FCA Consumer Duty Act, firms must ensure that products and services are sold at a price that reflects their value. Firms should not charge excessively high fees or commissions that do not reflect the value of the products and services they are providing.

Resolution:

To ensure transparency, firms should clearly disclose any fees or charges that may be incurred by the consumer. This includes ensuring that the costs and charges associated with products and services are clear, concise, and easily understandable.

Requirement:

To achieve Outcome 3 of the FCA Consumer Duty Act, firms must ensure that consumers are equipped to make good decisions. This means providing information that is clear, concise, and understandable, so that consumers can make informed decisions about the products and services they are considering.

Resolution:

Firms should make sure that the information they provide is relevant and timely, and that it is easily accessible to consumers. This includes providing information about the risks and benefits of the products and services and ensuring that consumers understand the potential costs and charges associated with them.

Requirements:

To achieve Outcome 4 of the FCA Consumer Duty Act, firms must ensure that their customer service is responsive and helpful. This includes making it easy for consumers to complain about or switch and cancel products and services if they are not satisfied.

Resolution:

Firms should provide clear information about how to make a complaint, and should handle complaints in a timely and effective manner. They should also provide clear information about how to switch or cancel products and services, and should not impose unreasonable barriers or charges to doing so.

Clients Reviews

We have worked with iiC for over 4 years now, the team are incredibly knowledgeable, supportive and flexible and really work with you to help to make the assessment process as straightforward as possible. The in-depth analysis and insight obtained from the assessment is really valuable to help you understand any areas for improvement and to remain focussed on continuous improvement.

Natasha Glasgow, Broadstone

The scale and depth of insight provided through an IIC survey is invaluable. It highlights what you are doing well, and exactly how you can improve customer experience.

Claire Pope, Quartix

Investor in Customers as a team and as a process are highly recommended. As to be expected they are very customer focussed and approachable and guide you through all stages of the survey process and subsequent results with the minimum of fuss.

Rick Keeble, Oplo

I have always found the team at IIC knowledgeable and passionate about what they do. They have made the assessment process very simple and more importantly have provided us with valuable interdependent feedback, that we can use.

Ian Burke, Trafalgar House

I would highly recommend IIC to any company serious about excellent service. Its a very thorough survey, and to get a 360 degree view on the customer experience is invaluable, no matter how big or small your company is.

Sofie Westlake, Quartix

Everything was made as user friendly as possible for us, and ultimately I believe led to our success. It is truly heartening to see an organisation like IIC practice what they preach - they place us as the customer, at the centre of all that they do

Vice President, Northern Trust

Investor in Customers is now widely recognised as the benchmark to articulate the delivery of customer satisfaction

Group CEO, AXA

IIC help us to develop both our external customer relationships and internal culture. I'm really pleased with the way that we are challenged to make necessary changes to our mindset and processes

Commercial Director, NSG Pilkington

We found IIC’s assessment to be extremely thorough, with the four principled, 16-themed approach resulting in very detailed feedback. The findings have enabled us to clearly see what we are doing well, and where we can do even better, making what they do great value for money

Managing Director, Prism Network

We find the IIC process highly useful. It tracks our progress, identifies if our staff and management are aligned with our customer objectives. We also love the fact that it is statistically significant and objective

Managing Director, Intrum

Delivering exceptional client service is at the heart of our business. The assessment process and customer journey mapping work we've undertaken with IIC has been invaluable in providing independent insight into how we can continually improve our business. It is a powerful, recognised accreditation, which we actively use in the marketplace.

Marketing Director, Bishop Fleming LLP

In the last 10 months we have been fortunate enough to receive 5 awards from our peers within the insurance industry. One area that sets us apart from our competition, and was mentioned by the judges, is our relationship with IIC. For us this is a clear differentiator from our competition and is solid evidence of the service that we deliver to our clients. It's easy to say you deliver good customer service - we can prove it

Director, Square Mile Broking

Having worked with Investor in Customers on previous customer engagement activities, Tandem were keen to take advantage of the opportunity to work with IIC in relation to the new Consumer Duty Principle. The output from these initial surveys has been used to support our internal assessment against the four outcomes.

The whole process has been seamless, with IIC taking responsibility for the communication and gathering of responses.

Joseph Hall