Harnessing the power of behavioural science to better support customer and member engagement
The Behavioural insights Team (BIT), in conjunction with Fair4All Finance, have worked with three community finance providers to launch a new customer engagement support guide to better improve customer engagement using insights from behavioural science.
Our segmentation research shows that at least 17.5m people in the UK are currently in financially vulnerable circumstances.
As part of our commitment to increasing the availability of affordable credit for people in financially vulnerable circumstances, we’ve been working with community finance providers and industry specialists to develop a series of practical tools and resources to support the growth of the sector.
The Customer Engagement Support Guide is the latest in this series and draws from expert advice and experiences from the community finance sector, as well as practical evidence from academic research in behavioural science to develop interventions and services that can support people to make better choices for themselves.
What is the Community Finance Engagement Support Guide?
Building on our work with three lenders, this guide provides support and guidance to the wider community finance sector with practical examples of interventions that organisations can make to increase their conversion rates of eligible customers and to strengthen their customer and member communications.
In this guide you will find:
- ways to improve your online loan journeys
- advice and support on how to strengthen your customer and member communications
- how to evaluate the changes that you have made to measure improvement
Laura Kaye, Programme Manager – Growth and Development at Fair4All Finance said:
‘We’re really excited to share this guide with everyone and the tips and changes shared are all about making a difference to the experience of those in financially vulnerable circumstances. Lenders who’ve tried them out have told us how much they helped their customers and members, and we’re hopeful these recommendations will be useful for many more lenders, providing benefits for many more customers.’
Ruth Persian, Principal Advisor, BIT said:
‘To be able to adequately support new and existing customers, community lenders need to take into account how people make decisions and understand the world around them. We have been delighted to distil and demonstrate how behavioural insights can be used to strengthen customer communications – from onboarding new customers to contacting those who might struggle to make loan repayments. We hope our insights and this guide proves beneficial to all in community finance.’
We’d love your feedback
We want the resources we develop to be practical, usable and useful, so we’d love to hear from community finance providers who have tried them – what’s working, what could be improved and what else would you find helpful? Do let us know any feedback you have at hello@fair4allfinance.org.uk.
We’ll be sharing more tools and resources throughout the year, for both credit unions and CDFIs. Please keep an eye out for our regular Community Finance Bulletins or visit the ‘Resources’ section of our website to find the latest support.