Client Success Story: Leeds Building Society

leeds buildng society picture square
leeds buildng society logo square

Services & sector

Financial Sector

Building societies are a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organisation, which offers banking and related financial services, especially savings and mortgage lending.

About Leeds Building Society

Leeds Building Society serves more than 700,000 members across the United Kingdom. It has over 50 branches throughout the UK, with 29 located in its Yorkshire heartland, and a contact centre in the North East.

As a mutual, the Society doesn’t have shareholders, but is owned by its members and has had the same core purpose throughout its 145+ year existence – helping people to save and to have the home they want. Its award-winning services allows the Society to exceed its members’ expectations and create strong brand loyalty.

The requirement

At the start of 2020, as the UK became involved in an unprecedented international pandemic, Leeds Building Society was focused on the needs of its members during this challenging time. The business immediately decided to increase the convenience and security available for its members making mortgage payments by adding automated channels to the existing payment options.

After research and discussions with its gateway providers, the Society came to the conclusion that a self-service Mortgage Payments IVR would be the best place to start. This would benefit both customers and colleagues, freeing up valuable time that could be better spent assisting the people that needed them the most during such a difficult period.

The solution

Following an introduction to Key IVR, discussions with Leeds Building Society quickly progressed into the build of a PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant secure Payment IVR. Available 24/7, this would allow customers to make payments over the phone, without the need for a colleague to assist.

Additionally, with an SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) integration, Leeds Building Society members would be able to call a dedicated payment number, which would verify their identity with a number of security questions. They would then be able to make payments towards their mortgage, whether a fixed payment or overpayment amount, as the IVR is diverse in how it accepts different account transactions. After the payment is processed, customers also can choose to receive a text receipt to confirm everything was processed successfully.

“Thanks to the efforts of both the Key IVR and Leeds Building Society teams, the whole project was delivered quickly and efficiently, with any technical problems unblocked with ease. We were delighted to work with such a dedicated organisation in order to streamline their payment process, and improve the convenience for their customers during unpredictable circumstances.”

sophie circle

Sophie Chan
Head of Account Management
Key IVR

The outcome

The Payment IVR has drastically increased the ease of taking payments for Leeds Building Society, removing a large percentage of inbound payment calls which otherwise would have been taken by a colleague. This has freed up customer-facing teams to respond to calls, including those from customers at risk of financial difficulty. This has reduced the demand on the team during busier times of the month, such as when mortgage payments would typically be made.

“Managing customer demand is critical to great service. The Key IVR solutions create flexibility for our customers, who have embraced the additional functionality – over 8,000 transactions processed since launch. “The dedication, pace and support provided by Key IVR was phenomenal, ensuring smooth delivery from start to finish.”
leeds buildng society logo square

Tony Lewty
Operations Change Delivery Lead
Leeds Building Society

More than 8,000 transactions have been made through the automated Payment IVR within its first nine-months, all of which would have been previously processed manually over the phone. This highlights how successful the solution has been for Leeds Building Society and how similar organisations can benefit from Key IVR.

Since the introduction of the Payment IVR, Leeds Building Society has expanded its relationship with Key IVR, adopting additional services that will be introduced in the coming months.

For more information about Leeds Building Society, please visit their website www.leedsbuildingsociety.co.uk

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