Communications Outcomes Monitoring – easier said than done

The FCA’s latest podcast on the expectations of outcomes monitoring under Consumer Duty makes for a very interesting listen. With the clear message on what firms need to achieve in this area of monitoring, but very little on the how to achieve it.

We’ve heard many times before that “firms should have a strategy in place to ensure they are using the right data and intelligence”. That “firms need to spot where customers are getting poor outcomes and be able to tackle risks or evidence of harm.”

But how are firms going to go about this? This is where the detail is lacking. Partly because it’s not the FCA’s job to prescribe the ‘how’, but also because always-on outcomes monitoring is more challenging than many firms and the regulator realised.

You can’t monitor what you can’t see 

When it comes to communications, most firms are facing into an agenda where ownership of customer outcomes simply doesn’t exist. This is particularly true within the area of service and operational communications, where even visibility of the comms themselves is poor, never mind the weak customer comprehension and potentially negative resulting outcomes.

For many communications there’s been very little journey by design and individual touchpoints have often been operationally planned and rarely audience-led in their content or design. Plus, thinking doesn’t often go further than the individual communication, so considerations around channel, timeliness etc are often overlooked.

This means for many firms, the work they’ve done to get on top of visibility and monitoring is already out of date with the increased expectations of Consumer Duty.

Consumer Duty 2.0 – embedding into BAU

For firms to properly embed Consumer Duty into their BAU, they need to create a centre of expertise; a place where customer need and outcomes within communication journeys and touchpoints have clear ownership and control. At Signal we call this Consumer Duty 2.0. And it’s what all firms need to be building towards to sustainably operate within the Consumer Duty framework going forward.

To be truly effective these centres of expertise require a robust, sustainable measurement and monitoring strategy. Which in turn requires the skills, technology and data to proactively map and dynamically measure communication touchpoints.

In the FCA’s podcast they say, “We want firms to harness the benefits of the data and technology that they have to improve services and understand the outcomes for customers.” But for many this is easier said than done.

At Signal we help firms create and optimise their centres of expertise for communications management. And this includes helping them bake always on-monitoring into BAU. Services include support with journey measurement & monitoring strategies, setting up of comms comprehension testing – and providing the technology solutions for touchpoints to be mapped and dynamically managed.

Get in touch to learn more and explore how we can help support your Consumer Duty 2.0 implementation plans.