SalesSense Banking & Financial Services
Welcome to SalesSense Banking
and Financial Services
It makes sense to partner with SalesSense
- Remediation activity and RMP / “Black Swan event” related customer support
- Product quotations, sales, applications and switching information
- Complaint and query management
- Collections and recoveries
- Back-office business processing
- Marketing and service support
Why should you consider partnering with SalesSense?
- We have a proven ability in delivering quality results in time-sensitive scenarios
- We are an international multi-award winning customer engagement centre with a European headquarters
- We have knowledge and experience to drive better solutions and address challenges head on
- We are highly skilled in meeting regulatory and operational challenges around resource scale, competence, robust processes and quality
- Our team will live your brand and focus on quality returns and customer satisfaction
Track record
We have market expertise demonstrating returns for companies across multiple markets – just ask for client references.
We are a platinum grade Deloitte best managed company that have maintained accredited compliance for many years with ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 27001 while our senior management has extensive experience in banking and regulation.
We are forward-thinking with a watchful eye over the evolution of markets and an upstream view of regulatory change and expectations.
Operational resilience and compliance
We understand how vital regulatory compliance, operational resilience and proper management of operational risk are to the outsourcing of banking and financial services in particular. Our systems, process and governance are structured to ensure operational compliance, readiness and active risk management for handling events and issues professionally and effectively.
Customer satisfaction is core to our values. The importance of ensuring that their best interests are served in line with regulatory expectations and good business practice is essential to this. Our vision and values are aligned with conduct expectations of banks and financial services providers in their ongoing operations.
OUR VISION
To be the Sales and Service Partner of choice in all markets we operate in. Staying true to our values, achieving our goals and delivering on the expectations of our people and our clients.
OUR VALUES
TEAMWORK – we work collaboratively with colleagues and partners
INSPIRING – we lead by example
EXCELLENCE – we deliver what we promise and add value beyond expectations
Scalability, Recruitment and Retention
The great advantage of outsourced support is the ability to ramp up quickly, as it takes months to hire and train new sales personnel. We can have new teams fully operational within two weeks.
We have an in-house award-winning recruitment team who work with our sister recruitment company, PlaceMe Recruitment. SalesSense and PlaceMe have a proven track record in scaling businesses in a time-sensitive manner. The key components of the SalesSense recruitment and retention strategy are:
- Recruit for attitude, train for success
- Effective internal management
- Career development opportunities
- Work-life balance programs
- Strong recognition programme
Geography
We can source local staff who know the Irish market and understand customer needs and circumstances. This provides us with the agility to move quickly as circumstances arise and demand requires and helps satisfy any external regulatory and audit concerns regarding ease of oversight and access.
Dundalk is well served with accessible talent spanning from North County Dublin to south of Belfast, incorporating Louth, Meath and Monaghan. Our Dundalk Customer Engagement Centre is within commuting distance of both Dublin and Belfast airports. A high-quality building, it can be expanded a further 15-30,000 square feet as required.
Our Galway centre is similarly served in terms of accessible talent between Galway and Limerick and is within an hour of Shannon airport.
Training
In addition to ramping up your sales team, we train staff in tandem with your training department. We are corporate members of the Institute of Bankers (IoB) and as part of our outsourced partnerships, we have trained numerous people in banking, financial services and similarly relevant operations and activities. Furthermore, we have enlisted and supported staff through APA qualification with the IoB.
ESG
We are committed to continuous improvement in our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) scores. Following the implementation of ISO 14001, we became the first professional services firm to receive classification from Planet Arborist, who audited us in terms of Diversity, Social Inclusion and Sustainability.
As well as strong internal governance, we maintain robust bespoke governance with our partners. This ensures effective oversight and continuous improvement which gets the best results for our partners and their customers while managing and mitigating risk transparently and collaborativel
‘PILLAR BANK’ CASE STUDY
How SalesSense helped a pillar bank address a shortfall in APA-qualified staff for customer loan applications, while meeting regulatory expectations around customer engagement
In 2022 we delivered immediate and tangible success working with one of the top Irish retail banks to provide outsourced support on personal loans.
The Challenge
The bank required an urgent solution around the recruitment and training of APA-qualified staff outside of the scheduled Institute of Bankers (IOB) courses; the solution was to support growth in customer engagement and, in particular, lending activity, associated with the ‘return to normality’ after the Covid-19 restrictions. Also, there was a significant move of customers to the bank due to the winding down of Ulster Bank and KBC. Additionally, challenges arose in respect of both the recruitment and retention of inbound customer service staff in a very competitive recruiting environment. Operating under strict governance, the bank required customer service agents to understand how to apply the bank’s values and policies and stay within the demanding regulatory requirements and guidelines. Also, they were dealing with the often-challenging and ongoing personal circumstances of their customers as the cost-of-living crisis was driving higher call volumes. The bank had several immediate challenges, including:- Servicing the current customer base was difficult because of the recruitment environment and the operational conditions due to the cost-of-living crisis
- Satisfying the surge in demand for new resources to handle a large and new customer base due to Ulster Bank and KBC leaving the Irish market
- The recruitment and retention of APA-qualified staff and staff in general.
- The operating restrictions within the confines of the financial industry, in particular;
- the APA qualification process generally takes three months (if taken by an individual); or
- recruiting qualified people limits choice due to the small pool of suitably qualified resources
- The challenge of finding a location which is well-located with good physical infrastructure/technology to support the training, onboarding, and ongoing delivery of the service.
Approaches
Over the past 15 years, SalesSense has operated in highly-regulated vertical markets/industries with similar requirements to the pillar bank, including: Energy, Media, Education, Medical Technology (Financial Division), Telecoms and Financial Services. Our dedicated recruitment team are class leaders which allowed us to apply our industry-leading recruitment solutions to the situation. Our operating model provides an improved ability to plan and sequence initiatives, as dependencies across the organisation are better understood. Our Senior Leadership Team (SLT) analysed where weaknesses existed in resources, processes, or technology, which informed a quick and robust solution for the bank.- We commenced and paid for an IOB intensive course providing a Professional Certificate in Financial Advice (APA) course on behalf of the bank, through which we recruited and trained 18 FTE who achieved a 100% pass rate within a four-week period.
- We provided 38 new non-APA qualified customer engagement staff in October and a further 27 non-APA staff in November. All of these staff were on a qualification path for APA within four months of starting.
- We utilize our customer engagement centre’s in Dundalk and Galway and our technology suite to conduct the end-to-end activities in respect of training, oversight and ongoing delivery.
Impact/Outcomes
With multiple, skilled agent groups now working for the bank, the flexibility of our on-site teams and technology enabled the bank to prioritize customers’ calls ensuring optimized productivity and commercial targets were being achieved. The immediate resourcing needs were addressed, and a path was put in place to provide a flow of trained and qualified staff within a short period, all housed within our two customer engagement locations. Ongoing engagement through our bespoke governance with the bank allowed for a positive feedback loop and continuous improvement through the cycle of processes, controls, and engagement. This ultimately resulted in a positive experience for the staff, the bank and its customers.
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