Obama improves his Customer Service

In the directive issued by Barack Obama in May, a strategy has been set out to make services available via mobile devices in an effort to keep pace with the increase in smart phone use and improve the availability of government information via mobile to the American people.

Obama explains that until now, accessing government information has been a complex and painstakingly time consuming task, which has forced Americans to collate information from across government programs in order to identify exactly which services they require.  

The Obama administration is right to drive an improvement in its record keeping and consolidate information to enhance the accessibility with which individuals can navigate through government information. According to the Institute of Customer Service -  Good customer service is a critical component of business success and there is a direct link between high quality customer service and customer retention, business performance and – of most significance in this case – reputation.

Customers are increasingly demanding instant access to information and through enabling access through mobile devices is a sure-fire way to bring the knowledge and information as and when it is required.  Good customer service is not just applicable to Government, retail and other customer facing sectors, by focusing on customer needs and by creating efficiencies when managing problems, issues can be remedied quickly and efficiently.

The implementation of a mobile Government service is one means by which to increasing efficiencies and maintain a positive reputation – surely it is only a matter of time before other businesses adopt a similar approach.

Compliance headaches and inefficiencies

Regulatory burdens have always been in evidence. However, the landscape has changed greatly in recent years. The banking crisis, Enron et al and increasingly sophisticated, technically savvy and organised fraudsters are all high profile wake-up calls demanding a support network. That comes in the shape of legislation, regulation from professional and overseeing bodies and peer pressure for better practice.

Anti-Money Laundering, KYC, Suitability, FATCA etc mean that brokers, wealth managers and IFAs are exposed to a range of potentially threatening issues. With massive consequences for failure there’s increasing operational effort and expense needed to keep on top. Working practices evolve but, more often than not, they generate increased operational workload. As the burden compounds then you can be sure that the potential penalties for exceptions will also be rising. It’s no surprise that the numbers of compliance-facing staff therefore continue to rise. Against an economic backdrop where efficiency and cost savings are more important than ever this is a recipe for greater overheads with no appreciable return.

This latest Invu white paper examines a selction of issues faced by businesses in the finance sector, in particular the broking and wealth management communities. It’s not exhaustive but it does pick up some of the significant issues faced on a daily basis and some that are on the way. Many of these issues are burdens which IFAs, insurers, mortgage advisors and even accountants in practice face. Whilst setting these out we also identify the role of technology in mitigating them, most notably, of coure, via document based solutions.

Find out what role document solutions can play in mitigating the risks and reducing the day-to-day compliance impact and download the “Wealth Management – the case for eDM” from our resources section at www.invu.net