Performance Improvement in the Private Sector
ReAssure, part of the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business Phoenix Group, is home to circa 2 million customer policies across the UK.
Having previously completed operational improvement projects across all areas of ReAssure Customer Services, focused on embedding an effective Management Operating System to improve productivity, ReAssure wanted to focus on ensuring the right demand flowed through the business, both to optimise the operation and improve customer journeys. Managementors was engaged initially for a 6-month piece of work to reduce the proliferation of work volume significantly and sustainably across the business, which was later extended by a further 4-months due to the successful delivery of results and a desire to further improve performance.
The project was structured around three key workstreams:
- Resolve – Minimise the unnecessary handoff of work items between people and teams, to stem the flow of work into the Back-Office
- Reassign – Ensure work is consistently sent to the right people, first time, and ensuring the right behaviours and appropriate ownership to complete work at the first possible touch point
- Reduce – Improve the customer journey and appropriately manage customer expectations reducing repeat contact into the business
Each workstream followed a systematic approach to solution creation, first identifying (and constructing) accurate metrics, defining the ideal state, and identifying the biggest areas of opportunity, before co-designing solutions and ensuring feedback loops were in place to sustain the improvement. This iterative process ensured that the client teams were able to drive continuous improvement after project closure.
By establishing absolute clarity on how the business wanted to achieve an enhanced customer journey and control over workflow and volumes, the team was able to refine and install targets which aligned to these goals and which managers and colleagues understood and bought into. There was a shift away from targets being something to fear, and a focus instead on taking action to achieve better outcomes for customers. The new KPIs were an integral part of the system that enabled this change, along with a significant focus on side-by-side coaching and support of managers through a journey that led them to being confident in interpreting data and empowering them to take decisive action within their teams.
The hard work and dedication shown by the ReAssure teams resulted in a 25% increase in First Point Resolution (FPR), 34% reduction in proliferation of work and a 21% reduction in volume of repeat calls. The benefits impacted three groups: customers, with improved customer journeys; colleagues, through greater ownership and satisfaction in the job; and the business, through optimised cost of delivery.
“Managementors won the hearts and minds of our teams which was critical to us delivering the project that we did, it really was a first-class engagement.”
Chris Yardley, Head of ReAssure Customer Services
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