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Major programmes for Treating Customers Fairly run risk of becoming bogged down because of short-sighted and inadequate management of procedures, processes and policies.

PolicyMatter Ltd, the market leading policy management software house, today called for a change in the way regulated organizations meet regulatory requirements defined under the banner of Treating Customers Fairly (TCF). Rather than seeing TCF as just a compliance obligation, PolicyMatter urges managers to see it additionally as a clear framework for driving business efficiencies and enhancing customer experience of their services.

Guidelines from the FSA describe the outcomes that a successful TCF policy should achieve, and from the end of December 2008 this becomes mandatory for defined organizations. How these outcomes are achieved is to a degree left to the individual organization. At the heart of most strategies lie a set of procedures, policies and processes that shape the behaviour employees should display to customers.

In many cases however these procedures run the risk of not being comprehended because of shortcomings in the way they are managed and communicated through their life-cycle. As the regulatory bar is raised, traditional communications method are found wanting. E-learning systems may contain good content, but may be overly reliant on voluntary access by staff. Intranet and email-based documents run the risk of being ignored or hard to retrieve. Induction schemes give valuable messages but resist change.

“At a time when getting TCF awareness Right First Time is paramount, it’s unfortunate that comprehension of essential procedures is reliant on less than rigorous approaches,” commented PolicyMatter Managing Director Chris Heslop. “For years now we’ve being helping customers demonstrate meticulous strategies for ensuring and tracking that staff have read and understood essential procedures. But at the same time they see huge benefits in improved efficiencies and more positive experiences for their customers. There’s no reason why that shouldn’t be an outcome of a TCF initiative as well.”

For more information visit www.policymatter.com