Financial services leader optimises appointment scheduling for Advisors

27 Mar 2018

The UK's leading equity release provider benefits its field based Advisors and customers with FLS VISITOUR solution which enables quicker attendance to appointments and  more efficient use of time.

Results achieved have included attending appointments sooner, reducing mileage and travel, and increased capacity to attend more appointments per Advisor.

Darren Halliwell, Chief Technology Officer at KR Group explains “Our process for arranging customer visits was laborious and often made poor utilisation of Advisors time. Our key focus is to attend appointments in a timely manner that supports our customer needs via a two-stage face-to-face process; a first meeting and then follow-ups. For this to be achieved with the same Advisor often caused ineffective use of resources and delays to other potential customer visits.”

Selection of FLS and No-Commitment Trial

Darren continues “We chose to work with FLS as we had confidence in their offering and approach to proving the benefits with relatively low investment of both time and resource. They were initially recommended by a Microsoft Dynamics partner due to their expertise working with CRM and we were impressed with the feedback from reference customers they provided.”

Working together, KR Group and FLS completed an initial scheduling test using FLS VISITOUR and historical data to compare with their current process. The results were compelling and KR quickly decided to take advantage of the FLS offer of a SaaS “try before you buy” live system trial.

The agile implementation approach meant the trial could be live within 2 weeks. The trial immediately showed positive results and was extended from the North-West region to include London which had different travel challenges.

“Though the trial was not a fully integrated system, we quickly began to realise the advantages that FLS VISITOUR offered for cost and efficiency savings and, most importantly, in terms of customer convenience and satisfaction. The benefits achieved, including quicker response times, higher appointment availability and reduced travel costs, led to the whole business wanting to positively embrace FLS VISITOUR for our face-to-face Equity Release Advisors and with real potential for other areas of the business”.

FLS VISITOUR and Microsoft Dynamics Integration

Through the successful trial, KR Group had the reassurance of knowing their ROI and end results were as expected and the decision was made to deploy as soon as possible. FLS worked with KR Group’s Microsoft Dynamics partner and within a few weeks the integration between FLS VISITOUR and Microsoft Dynamics was live and the solution rapidly rolled out to all users. The Call Centre was consequently able to operate purely with Dynamics to manage appointments while allowing team managers to use FLS VISITOUR’s advanced scheduling and route optimisation features.

Field based follow-up appointment booking with FLS MOBILE

As a second phase of the rollout, FLS VISITOUR’s mobile app was put in place for field based Advisors meaning they could offer the follow-on appointment at the conclusion of the first, confident in the knowledge that their time would still be used efficiently with the least possible travel and cost, while meeting the needs of the customer they are with at the time.

The Results!

Darren concludes “The integration and implementation project was an excellent success and has delivered our objectives. We have a more efficient team delivering lower cost appointments with increased flexibility for customer convenience and satisfaction. The VISITOUR technology does exactly what was proposed to us and we have built an excellent working relationship with FLS. I would not hesitate to choose the same solution if starting again.”

Chris Welsh, UK Sales Director for FLS comments “It has been very pleasing to work with Key Retirement and hear such positive feedback from management, call centre and field users alike. Optimised appointment booking and real-time scheduling is not just for engineers and this is a great case in point.”

Download PDF