Customer Satisfaction: Strengthening Relationship Management

By Helen Cunningham

DTCC’s response to the 2005 customer survey included the formation of cross-organizational action teams charged with implementing strategies to improve customer service. These teams are focused on three attributes that drive customer satisfaction: problem resolution, overall customer service and how Relationship Management staffs meet customer needs.

The article that follows provides a progress report on the team focused on Relationship Management. Future articles will cover other teams’ activities.

Focal points

“One message that came through loud and clear from the customer survey data was the need for DTCC’s relationship managers to spend more time with customers,” said Paula Arthus, DTCC managing director, Mutual Fund Services. “Another theme was that customers wanted us to know their businesses better.”

To strengthen these aspects of the customer experience, DTCC assembled a team of executives who manage customer relationships from the Deriv/SERV, Insurance Services and Mutual Fund Services business units, along with members of DTCC’s Core Relationship Management group, who cover the Clearance and Settlement, Asset Services and Fixed Income businesses.

The team reviewed the customer satisfaction action plans that had been developed by each individual business unit. “We identified best practices and synergies that could be leveraged across the entire organization,” noted Arthus.

“We also wanted to introduce a degree of standardization to our practices, so that all our Relationship Management organizations operate with consistency,” said Ann Vece, vice president, Core Relationship Management. “We have customers who use a number of our products and services, and a common approach to relation-ship management is fundamental.”

Customer outreach

To focus DTCC relationship managers on discovering more about their customers, each relationship management team developed detailed account plans for certain customers. These plans serve as a single, centralized source of information on the firm and its relationship with DTCC.

By the end of the first quarter, DTCC had met with and completed action plans for more than 90% of targeted customers. “We’re getting good feedback on our outreach,” said Arthus, “Our customers believe that when we better understand their businesses – and pain points – we are in a stronger position to anticipate and meet their needs.”

The account plans include a business profile of the customer, as well as an overview of its strategic priorities. “This information is a valuable resource for helping DTCC executive management and our business units identify potential opportunities for solutions at an individual customer, market segment or industry level,” said Arthus.

Also in the plans is an overview of the customer’s relationship with DTCC. This covers services used across DTCC’s subsidiaries and targeted joint initiatives – such as testing for business continuity or implementation for Canadian dollar settlement – along with action steps and timelines for achieving them.

This account planning process emphasizes customer dialogue that is strategically oriented. “We’re making it a priority to schedule high-level discussions at least once a year to focus on the big-picture issues facing both the customer and the industry,” said Vece. “Given the multiple corporate initiatives DTCC has been working with customers to implement over the last few years, many of our interactions tended to be more tactical in nature.”

Better follow-up

A more structured approach to follow-up on customer calls and meetings is another area of focus. “We are formalizing our guidelines for relationship managers to document all customer discussions, including action items and due dates,” said Vece.

In addition to ensuring customer action items receive the necessary follow-up and attention, this effort will help keep all DTCC relationship managers up to speed on their customers. It will also raise the bar on existing customer reporting practices, which differ across DTCC and rely on various databases to capture information.

To address the issue of multiple databases, DTCC will be developing a system that will integrate customer data from across the organization. Among its many benefits, this capability will give DTCC a stronger customer relationship management platform. “It will integrate customer and contact information to provide a comprehensive, up-to-date view of each organization that can be leveraged by our business units to identify opportunities to deliver further efficiencies and capabilities,” said Vece.

Industry leadership

While providing product and service solutions for industry initiatives, DTCC is also working to be a catalyst for broadening customer education and awareness about industry and regulatory issues.

“The changes taking place in financial services are often complex, calling for solutions with short implementation times, so help with navigating the details is invaluable to many of our customers,” said Arthus, who gave an example from the mutual funds industry.

“For certain regulatory changes being mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, we are not only upgrading our services to facilitate compliance, we are also hosting Webcasts with industry experts from our customer base to increase understanding of the issues,” she said. “These Web forums take clients through our service enhancements and provide a question-and-answer format to discuss any questions they have about the broader topic.”

In the insurance sector, DTCC is building two new services that will help automate regulatory supervision for both insurance carriers and distributors. To bring customers up to speed on compliance issues and DTCC’s solutions, the Insurance Services staff will offer in-person training sessions for first movers, as well as e-learning modules for self-help training.

In the derivatives space, DTCC Deriv/SERV staff have expanded the use of global Webcasts to meet the increasing demand of prospective customers. These events are now offered at least twice a week, one out of New York and another out of London.

Customers first

“The true measure of DTCC’s success is how well we listen to, know and serve our customers,” summed up Arthus. “The Relationship Management team’s initiatives are just one example of customer-focused activities across DTCC that are intended to strengthen our understanding of customers and keep them at the center of all we do.”  @