- Speaker #0
Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of the Customer Engagement Examples of Excellence podcast. This is an Engage Customer podcast. Find out more at engagecustomer.com. In this episode, our host Will Lusted, Senior Account Manager at Kerv, talks with customer Mike Tamblin, Front Office Manager at Guardian, who has worked in financial services for 17 years, with a brief stop to explore a journalism career along the way. Will and Mike talk about the transformation journey that Guardian Financial Services have been on since partnering with Kerv.
- Will Lusted
Hi, Mike. First and foremost, thank you so much for agreeing to do this with us. It'd be brilliant if you could start off by explaining a little bit about who Guardian are, what you do, what you're proud about in terms of the service, and also how the business has been changing in recent years?
- Mike Tamblin
Yeah, thanks. Hi, Will. Yeah, it's a funny one, really. I mean, Guardian has, I guess we've been going now for what just over 200 years as a brand in that regard, but yeah so we're an insurance brand. We're very much about protecting families from risks of illness and death by providing you know kind of comprehensive clear insurance policies that pay out when you'd expect them to. As I say we're over 200 years old now but the specific sort of Guardian Financial Services brand, we acquired that in 2016 actually, so nine years ago. And then we opened up to business a couple of years later in 2018 with the idea that we wanted to do things a bit differently to what the other providers do really. We only sell our products through financial advisors. And across our journey since sort of coming into the marketplace in 2018, we've built many fantastic relationships with advisors out there, which is... has really sort of helped us to strengthen our brand and our position. But but we're still a fairly young business and I think as a... as a fairly young business we are absolutely evolving, we're changing, and we're looking for opportunities to to improve all the time. And service is really something that we're incredibly proud of and something we're really, we're really sort of specifically targeting to be the best out there. It probably sounds a bit cheesy but we really do hold our customers at the heart of absolutely everything we do. As I say it's that, that's the pride I think that one of the main things that we're really proud of because we've we strive to offer that that best possible service. And um I said we're really proud, well we've actually won the FT Advisor five star service award every year since since we launched and and that's probably, when I, when I talk about pride that's something really really important to us. It's an industry service award voted for by advisors and it does recognise who provides the best service out there across the industry. And five stars is, as you probably expect, the top award. So that's, that's definitely something we're really, really proud of and something we more than we want to continue to do throughout our journey going forward.
That's fantastic to hear and when we started engaging with you guys back in, in last year, it immediately came to the fore how you know from really through to you guys in operations and actually driving it. Yeah it really came to the fore when we were in that conversation, I think got us quite motivated to to work with you guys and become a part of that. So yeah, thanks for, thanks for that breakdown. And like equally it'd be interesting to dig into where you felt your challenges were, ahead of working with us. I know we are quite young in our relationship but you know we're here to, to help out and I think we've got a good plan together, but what would you say the biggest challenges you were facing at that time were?
Yeah I think b efore we started working with Kerv, I think probably one of the main challenges was that day-to-day BAU support. We all sort of hope that everything will work perfectly and we'll never need support. But the reality is things do sort of require some assistance, some things don't always work the way we would like them to. And we tended to find that with some of those support challenges that we had, that um they tended to take a bit too long to resolve for us and there was an impact on that. That meant impacting the teams and, not so much knock on to the customers because we were always really sort of mindful that we would work around what we needed to work around for that short period, but that was what was becoming a bit of a pain point for us. And on top of that, I think we were in a position where we were looking for a partner who would suggest new ways that we could improve and we could do things maybe slightly differently, open up potential other channels, other avenues for us to explore. And we don't always know what the potential solutions are. And sometimes... you know it sounds a bit silly to say, but sometimes we need someone to kind of come along and give us that little sort of fresh view, and that different perspective. And yeah so we were looking at ways we could improve and yeah that's kind of where where Kerv came along I think. I think with Kerv we've got a really great open dialogue and I think you sort of referenced that just now Will. We get really quick responses. There's a real consultative approach that sort of seems to sort of happen, a real two-way relationship. And I think that's, that's sort of helping to make our lives significantly easier. And of course, the knock-on impact of that is that the team feel the benefits, not just in my world, in the contact centre environment, but actually across operations and the wider business, because the platform is delivering more for us. And that's ultimately, it's meaning that our customers, they benefit, they feel that, they're getting quicker response times and they're getting better service from our team, because the team are working more effectively and more efficiently when it comes to customer queries and and sort of resolving any any challenges that come up.
It's really, it's really good to hear. I think probably speak for the rest of the Kerv team where we you know we're obviously very passionate about Genesys Cloud as a platform. We think it's amazing and it continues to support our customer base with the functionality that's there to provide them to help them navigate how their customers need to be interacted with, insights and things like that. But I think with all great technologies, whether it's in the contact centre or otherwise, sometimes if you're just purchasing something for the sake of purchasing it, and actually without a level of expertise, maybe you won't see the value that you need to. So when customers of ours, as you just have mentioned, how we're helping you get the most out of that. That's music to our ears so I really, really appreciate that and glad you've got a sense of that, that so far. But it'd be good to dig into that a little bit further about, in particular, how you feel that we're ensuring that you get the most out of your investment in Genesys. Maybe you could talk us through some of the ways that we've engaged to help you do that so far?
Yeah sure, I mean Kerv has been absolutely fantastic at showing us all the potential things that, that we could do to improve our service and the way we work. We've had a number of... there was a number of initial consultations, conversations and and then there's been... what's been really great for me has been the transparency and the honesty that's come from the Kerv team around what's worked for others, some of your other clients, and also what hasn't. And I think this, that there has been times where, where you can sometimes have conversations with providers in all sort of realms of life, not just in business, where there's that kind of angle of sort of being a bit more pushy, maybe looking to sort of benefit from that. And that's not been the case at all with Kerv. I think... it's been very much a case of informing us, throughout the whole journey that we had in moving across and since we've been with partnered with you guys, we've not been pushed into anything. There's not been sort of any hard sell or anything like that. It's just been information, 'this is what the art of the possible is. This is what it could potentially save you from a return on investment perspective'. And and yeah, there's been lots of information about potential enhancements. What I've really liked is it's been information, 'his is what you could have. This is what it will do.' And then the ball's been put in our court to see for us to go away, have a look, have a conversation, what aligns with our strategy and our priorities, and then coming back to the table to say, you know, let's explore this and maybe start to refine what that looks like in the future. In addition, there's been so much more autonomy on the support side. And there's been... it's been fantastic. And I think actually from my perspective, just personally, I've sort of engaged directly on a number of occasions with your support team and and they are brilliant. Just the last, this week I've had two incidents, not significant, but two sort of situations where I've spoken to the support team and I've got an almost instantaneous response within sort of 20 minutes, half an hour and then 'let's set up a quick call'. There's not sort of, it's not a big deal. It's not wait a week, wait two weeks, it's just 'let's have a quick call'. And just yesterday in fact I had that experience. You know it was fantastic, that we're coming on, we're having a two-way communication, we're resolving that challenge and you know sharing screens as well. So what I'm able to do and what my team are able to do is, is look, see how these challenges are being resolved. We're learning, that helps us with regards to our self-serve and we're very much on a journey of self-service. We've also got the regular reviews as well, that's helping us keep whatever plans we're looking at and plans we're working on, on track. And ultimately that's kind of really reassuring, it's reassuring for the team that we're exploring opportunities to remove the pain points that they feel. It's freeing up time for them because they're seeing the benefits of the efficiencies that we're able to sort of, either through fixing a problem or through enhancing. And that's then, you know, knock on impact is our customers feel an even greater service. And that's ultimately why we're here.
- Will Lusted
What was really interesting about that actually is that when we worked with you guys, throughout last year to kind of figure out, okay, well, you know, you've invested in this great piece of technology in Genesys Cloud. So from Kerv's perspective, I feel that you're in the right place. Genesys and Salesforce, two fantastic platforms for customer service, like you should be in a great place. So I think what we did well was to work with you guys and figure out, okay, well, against where Guardian needs to get to, in the way that you solve your customers' challenges, I think Paul did a really good job of kind of outlining the opportunity as you say within the platform to where your business needs to be and that's given us a bit of a plan to go forward. And you know we had some strong ROI on you know those recommendations but what wasn't in those recommendations was actually what you've just told me, is an ROI that you've seen through actually just having really good support. And we have this, I always get a couple of eye rolls from from the guys at the company when I talk around this, but I feel like we want our custom, we understand all of our customers sit on what we call a bit of, what I call a bit of a scale of autonomy, when it comes to their desire to get hands-on with Genesys. We're super happy and comfortable being there to provide as much support as you need, but our job is also to empower you to become as autonomous as you want to be and feel good to be in, if I've heard you right, I think that's what we're, that's the journey we're on at the moment. Like you've seen some value from that support so much so that you can reinvest time elsewhere. But actually, we're consistently working on that autonomy piece as well.
- Mike Tamblin
Yeah, it's as I say, I think the support team have been absolutely fantastic. It's something we've all sort of been really pleasantly surprised with. And that's not to say we had expectations that weren't overly sort of high in the first place, because we really did. But they've just been so fantastic around, they've really simplified what the challenges sort of are. We sort of, we notice something, we raise that with the support team and that may be something that we might be sort of finding is a) a real problem or just b) it's a really complex, small issue that we can't resolve. But through that really sort of, it's that two-way communication, I love the fact that then you know, 'let's have a quick call, let's let's share screens', that show you. And things are simplified really well, there's no sort of jargon. There's no sort of language that maybe sort of only tech-minded, or more tech-minded individuals would understand. It's a really great service that the team have been providing to my team and to our business. And yeah, long may that continue, most definitely.
- Will Lusted
It'd be really good also to hear about, you know, where you personally see focus areas going forward, and what's getting you excited about the opportunities in Genesys going forward? I know we worked together on a list of recommendations for the platform but any of those in particular things you want to call out and you're really, really excited about?
Oh yes, I mean there's a lot you know, when when Paul, who was brilliant, what I loved about Paul's approach was, it was not about... there was no agenda from Paul's side, it was very much a case of 'let's, let's get together, let's understand your business' and from understanding what we want to do as a business, where our strategy is taking us this year, but also beyond that. He has sort of come up with some fantastic recommendations. And I think from our side as a business, we're navigating a really exciting sort of time of change. We're sort of transforming, if you like, from startup to scale up, if you like, in our market. And I think the opportunities that have been sort of put towards us by Paul and the things that he's sort of come up with, are really, really positive. I think, I know we'll probably end up talking a little bit about AI, but there's certainly some opportunities there that I think we are looking to explore if we can. And we're certainly having those conversations. But for me, the overall excitement for me and what opportunities present themselves are that pretty much everything that we can do, we didn't necessarily know we could do. So that's great. Because that's really been, that's sort of added to our excitement to say hey you know this is available for us. But I think it's knowing that all of these different things are all different tools that we can use to support our customers, our ever-changing customer base and different generations of customers as that we sort of deal with today. Into you know, you've got school leavers that have grown up on on sort of social media and and all those sorts of things to to you know grandparents who sort of still live in a very traditional world if you like. The opportunities there are fantastic, that we are going to be able to enhance our customers experiences. We're going to make life really easy for our team. We're going to take out pain points and all of the potential opportunities that we've got, providing we can pick the right ones at the right time, which is what we're very much about you know and that's that's what we're discussing at the moment. Yeah it's, it's sort of, I'm not going to sit here and say that the sky's the limit, but there's a huge amount of potential and that's really exciting.
Mike we've mentioned Paul's name a couple of times, could you I guess for everyone listening, give a bit of colour to who Paul is and why he was important to work with for you guys?
Yeah so so Paul Cox, who I think he's one of your your consultants, but yeah he was fantastic in um looking and exploring. He sort of found I guess, wanted to explore what our business did, what we were all about and then he was able to go away and explore what the possibilities were within, within the platform, that could then support our strategy going forward and opened up yeah our eyes to the world of opportunity within the Genesys platform.
Yeah that's great to hear. I think that's so, it's so obviously so closely aligned to Genesys. It's the only platform that we trust to deliver transformation like this. And so when you hear things like that, it kind of makes us feel comfortable that we've got our eggs in the right basket, so to speak, in terms of the tech. And it's, yeah, I think it's about driving initial value through, you know, implementing Genesys for us. But then it's also about, it gives us this great opportunity for us and our customers to help them realise their vision going into the future. As you said, who knows what's going to be around the corner in a year, two years' time in terms of how your customers want to interact with you. And not only managing that, no one customer is the same. As you said, you deal with a variety of people across the spectrum of your demographics. So, yeah, I think it's about having the opportunity to be able to tackle that. It sounds like you have, which is great to hear. You mentioned AI. It's obviously a huge topic in our industry at the moment, great to gather your thoughts on that, but also if there's anything in particular you think you might be able to leverage within, within Genesys at any point, to to help you yeah, just help your operation, what do you think?
Yeah I mean so so I think from Guardian's perspective you know in terms of the contact centre and uh and how we're operating, as I mentioned earlier, myself and and some of our customer services team spent some time with Kerv's expert. I think I can call him the expert, Paul. And we looked at a whole range of potential options that would help improve how we operate and the knock-on impacts that that will have. We covered lots of ground. So we included things such as proactive notifications to our customers, which saves them time, saves us time as well. Increasing the use of chatbots, where relevant, to answer sort of basic questions. I think is something we definitely feel could add some good value and other options around communication channels. But we've also discussed building in some things, sort of automation into our phone lines, which again will help with routing customers. And some of the AI features that are out there, we'll definitely be looking to put in. And all of that's going to significantly support our aim of continuing and to enhance and deliver that five-star service, and concentrate our teams and our specialists where they're most needed. And if we can take them away from some of the manual tasks that they do today, that ultimately AI can support with, that's going to be a great thing. I guess sort of generally with regards to AI, and sort of, I guess, thinking more, I guess, industry-wide, I think, for me, I guess AI in general is a massive talking point all over, not just our industry, but across... all industries at the moment. I think there for me seems to be some sort of there's been mixed results. I think some are finding it really, really beneficial, creating a lot of positive outcomes. Others, not so much. For example, some are seeing that generative AI is not delivering necessarily the productivity gains that they would have expected. But for some, bringing in AI that's sort of supporting the automation of processes, that seems to be much more helpful. That seems to be creating what I think the plan was to create. We found the trick is to make sure that if you're saving time, that you're able to make use of the time you save in other ways. You save in tiny pockets, for example, of time. It might make life easier for one part of our business, but it doesn't necessarily give them... that real kind of sort of that time period where they can then use it to do different things and and that capacity is created which allows us to to move on to do other things. But with AI that's that's constantly evolving, it's constantly developing, I don't think we're anywhere near seeing the full flavour of what it's likely to to deliver in the long run and i'm sure there'll be huge amounts of changes to ai as as the years go on. But we'll yeah we're definitely going to to look to take advantage of AI. Along with power tools as well. So things such as Power Automate is something that we leverage where we can as well. And the plan is to remove some of our manual processes. And I think that's an industry, and then it's not just our industry, but I think that's all businesses are looking to do that. But we just need to keep a measured eye really, see with the AI tools that we look to bring in, 'what's the benefits, how much benefit do we get from that?' And also what the industry is doing and what other things are out there. We're really excited about the possibilities that AI bring us. But we do work in a regulated industry so we have to take into account what the financial conduct authority's view is. They will have a say to some degree but they are very pro-innovation so that's great. But as you'd expect they're quite cautious, so yeah they're going to be making sure, not just ourselves but all businesses that are in our industry, are correctly managing the risks and protecting customers. So yeah I mean it's really exciting, we've got lots of plans for it. But it's just sort of, it's not just jumping on and doing everything at once because there's a shiny new toy, so to speak. It's sort of, yeah, really seeing where the value is and leveraging it to really enhance what we want to do.
Yeah, I really appreciate that. I think it's really good, I think, yeah, for anybody listening to this who is maybe thinking, okay, well, this is something we do really need to start leveraging. I think we would always say, yeah, bear your approach in mind. Like leverage it in the right way. Be risk averse, especially if like you guys you want to deliver five star service. Gathering efficiency from things like AI shouldn't be at the detriment to your customer base, so making it work for both parties is really important. So yeah a really great, really great outlook on that. I think for us we felt very fortunate when the kind of AI revolution, as you might call it, within contact centre space within the CCaaS world came into play, that I think Genesys have a really great stance on it. You know, it's got the guardrails. You need to be able to use it. You're using AI products as opposed to having to figure it out for yourself. Those products are designed to be used by the most highly regulated businesses in the whole world. So yeah, it's a good level of trust. It means that we can trust what we're giving to our customers, which is massively important as opposed to, you know, I think there's a lot of third parties out there that people might deploy as a bit of a sticky plaster and then end up as a... in a bit of a situation. So it's been great for us as well, I think, through the Genesys offering, for sure. And what about digital in the way that you interact with your customers? Has that always been kind of part of the Guardian way? Or do you feel that digital is something you need to improve as an offering? What do you feel? Also, how do you feel about the role of...
- Mike Tamblin
role of voice going forward in the contact centre? Yeah um so for me digital first and foremost. I go as far as to say that without digital channels I don't see contact centres surviving. I think digital... digital channels, omnichannels, multiple channels with the right AI integration for me feels like the best solution to offer customers at this time. Things will change I'm sure in the future. But that for me is, it feels like, where... sort of businesses need to be at the moment. I think that I've said it before, technology is developing all the time. So it's important for us as a business to keep an eye on how things develop, how we can use the developments to improve customer outcomes. But it's also important we don't remove that human touch and we don't want to isolate any of our customers who need that more traditional approach to support. And I think I said it sort of earlier, we need to make sure we're catering for the different generations of customers because they have different needs. We've got a generation today who are brought up on social media - email, WhatsApp - these are their chosen methods of communication and that's what a lot of our younger generations seem to be going towards today. And I'm sure my young children, when they become adults, there'll be something else for them. But at the same time, I look at my parents' generation. Their method of communication was a landline and that's all we knew. I remember as a child it was a landline only, mobile phones didn't exist, probably showing my age. But I think society is dictating to a large degree that we use technology, we use digital for everything in our everyday lives and this is already dictating how consumers are interacting with businesses. From our side we are looking to enhance our digital channels. We already have digital channels within our contact centre and the use of that has increased. I've been with the business for over, just over two years and it's month on month increasing the use of our digital channels. So we are looking to enhance that and to create more offerings. There are a few things along the way that we need to ensure that we're, we're going to be able to use them for the right reasons and that's some business conversation at the moment, but absolutely I think digital is is... it's got to be a part of the modern contact centre. As far as voice, I think that's a really, really interesting question. My view is that human interaction will always be needed to a degree. And I don't want to be naive with regards to what AI will be able to offer now and in the future. But I think having a human interaction over the phone, or at least having that option, for me, certainly at the moment in the world that we live in, I think still plays a significant part. I can absolutely see a world where voice is no longer the most popular or the most utilised service of a contact centre. At the moment for us, it's still significantly the go-to channel and that might be due to our customer base and we're heavy in interacting with advisors, for example. But I do see a future where that perhaps flips and actually the digital channels, the AI sort of interactions become the main use, if you like, for our customers and for customers across the industry. But yeah for me I still think there's a place at the moment for that but for the whole omnichannel piece I think yeah
- Will Lusted
I think I totally agree. I think we we've seen the focus in our customer base on, and this has been enabled by the technology in in our market right which is really great, but it's about the the role of the channel and that's really nuanced and tied to personally what it means in terms of your service. The importance of voice to to a retailer might be different to the importance of voice to somebody dealing with their finances. And it's... it captures so much trust within that, you know you can hear the the tone of somebody's voice and things like that if you know you're if you're in financial difficulty for example. I know we do so much work around consumer duty and and customer vulnerability in your space that actually just speaking to somebody and hearing the tone of their voice is really important, but actually being considered about the way you're coming across as well then you have a responsibility to do that, which maybe is easier to overcome if you're just interacting digitally so so much nuance but yeah
- Mike Tamblin
I think yeah a really interesting topic. I was going to say I think with the consumer duty piece I think that's a that that's kind of to some degree going to, I don't want to say, dictate to organisations, but I do think it will have a big bearing on as we go forward because, you know, different vulnerabilities require different ways of providing outcomes. And I mean, I know Genesys has some fantastic solutions for on digital channels that can help with various challenges, whether it's communication challenges or others. So any kind of vulnerabilities that can be supported in a better, more effective way, we as a business are very open to. And I think whilst the digital channels, we know there's technology out there that supports that and that's absolutely something we want to sort of explore. But yeah, there is that. That's where voice, I think, comes into it. Just being able to have somebody who can respond in, I guess, a more human way, as humans do tend to sort of interact slightly differently, think slightly differently. At this time, I think is, yeah, that multi-channel is important.
- Will Lusted
Yeah. And we can recognize that. But now in the technology, right, we can understand what kind of experience would somebody need. And that that experience might differ from what they needed to contact you about half an hour ago. They may still be speaking to you about something else across the web chat, but actually they may have something that's a bit more emotive and worrying to speak to you about. It's about being there to, you know, it's about having intimate knowledge of your customer base so you know that you can support them in the right way, I think is the key, key theme that we're we're saying. And what would you say differentiates Guardian service, customer service, from what makes it unique? Are there any things you'd call out?
- Mike Tamblin
We went through a significant growth period. We're still a growing business today in a challenging market, which is fantastic. And we've had significant growth over the years that we've been in business since 2018. And as part of that, we went through a significant recruitment drive. We had to grow our heads, if you like, our people quickly, but we went through a a period of sort of completely overhauling what that looked like and exploring who we wanted to bring to the business. And we changed our focus dramatically to what we wanted, was less around if you like, technical sort of skills at that time. And we really sort of explored who really, really, really, sort of wanted to work with customers, who really focused and had a passion for customers and customer outcomes. And in the business that we're in, you know, we have people that need us, at times they need us the most, you know, that point of claim or if they want to understand and wade through the jargon that can be insurance policies. So it was really important for us that when we recruited people, we focused solely on that element and really built what we wanted for our people. The profile of person we wanted in our contact centre had to be these people that were 'it's about customer outcomes'. And and I feel that we've sort of brought these people in and nurtured them and, and along with system enhancements, some that obviously Genesys have provided us which has been fantastic, and working with Kerv has been in the short term already has absolutely helped there. But I think we've we've got this balance, we've got this great balance of people that genuinely care. People that want to to do absolutely everything they can and almost get frustrated if they come up against a barrier where they can't go that extra mile for our customers. And it's that balance with technology that we're sort of enhancing all the time. And I think you know we've said about it already on this interview, it's that balance between the two and I think Guardian has a great balance, despite the growth that could make that balance sort of come off, or off where you want to be, we've been really able to keep that balance throughout our journey, our growth journey, and we're still growing. We've got fantastic sort of retention of staff and that again, that sort of is a testament to the culture that we have within our business. And all of this creates what I would define as a, as a really great experience where all of the interactions our guys have, our team have, are sort of they've really cared about. Our service levels are fantastic and yeah you know our awards - five-star awards for every year since we've been in business - and fingers crossed continues on, I think is a testament to just how we do things that little bit differently. We've got great products to support it, but yeah, it's about the people and they really care. And that makes my life, it makes my life a little easier, but it also makes me really proud of what we've created at Guardian. It's a place that I would sort of, I've said I've never worked in a place quite like it for really positive reasons where everybody...
- Will Lusted
kind of has that similar customer focus. It's that same mentality of um we make decisions based on on what our customers need. Yeah I I think that's that's amazing. I think you could have the best technology in the world but what, yeah it's almost built on sand if you have people that don't want to do that, and aren't passionate about what they're doing. So um yeah I think that's that's definitely mirrored in what you've just said. And I think then you know people go out and get excited about AI and things like that and how they can leverage it to drive efficiency, but if you're driving efficiency because you need to save money yeah, question how expensive it is to continuously have to rehire new people if you haven't hired the right people in the first place, or they have to leave you because they're not passionate about what they do. So by investing the time on that front end it sounds like you guys have had a are seeing really amazing outcomes from from putting the time in on the front end, making sure we've got the right people here for the right reason and y eah, i t's part of your DNA.
- Mike Tamblin
I think that's the thing. We've invested in the front end to get the right people to have that sort of part nailed down, if you like. And now for us, it's about the investment behind the scenes, investing to create the other things that we want to do, the enhancements, the efficiencies. The extra things that not only we can offer directly to our customers through things such as digital channels and so on, but also... that we can offer as efficiencies to our team that then create capacity for them, create growth opportunities for them, and frees them up to do other things. And that's, I guess, you know, that's where AI will, will play a part for us. We'll see what happens in the future.
- Will Lusted
Brilliant. I think that brings us kind of neatly to the end of, especially the questions we had lined up for you. And obviously I massively appreciate your insight and input.
- Mike Tamblin
No, thanks, Will. No, I really appreciate your time. And thanks for asking me to come on. Thanks for listening. For other episodes and more information, head to engagecustomer.com.