Business Enquirer Issue 124 | Yorkshire Building Society | April 2024

EMBRACING CHANGE TO ADD VALUE TO CUSTOMERS

EMBRACING CHANGE TO ADD VALUE TO CUSTOMERS

In 2018, GlobalData’s Retail Banking Survey highlighted the importance of Net Promoter Score (NPS) in supporting customer acquisition.

The research indicated that 44% of millennials chose their current mortgage provider due to a recommendation from friends and families. 37% took out their most recent loan for the same reason.

In addition, the survey identified three positive sentiments that promoters had in common: being easy to deal with, helpful staff, and trust.

Demonstrating its commitment to delivering a high standard of service to its customers, and achieving the above sentiments, is Yorkshire Building Society (YBS), which has recently increased its NPS to 61.

Whilst the member-owned building society has been in business for 150 years, it recognises that moving with the times is integral to adding value for all of its customers.

YORKSHIRE BUILDING SOCIETY

PROJECT

DIRECTED BY: JAMIE WAITE ARTICLE

WRITTEN BY: LAURA WATLING

Transformation Director, Ben Sampson

Since January 2020, YBS has undergone significant change in order to offer a hybrid of services - retaining its physical presence whilst transforming its digital services.

Driven by its purpose of “Real Help with Real Life”, its transformation is underpinned by three central ambitions:

• Helping people to have a place to call home;

• Helping them towards greater financial wellbeing;

• Creating long-term value for our members.

Now, the building society has 227 branches across the country, as well as an ever advancing digital offering, both of which supported the opening of nearly 700,000 new savings accounts and gross lending of £9 billion in 2023.

Co-Creating Change

Steering YBS into the future is its Transformation Director, Ben Sampson.

With a rigorous approach to change and its execution, Ben considers himself a ‘servant leader’, creating an environment for his colleagues to thrive.

“YBS’ vision is to transform not just our services, but people too - be that our customers or our colleagues,” shared Ben, “I value diversity, inclusion, and equality. With a mixture of voices and experiences we are able to co-create change,”.

As a purpose-driven mutual, Ben believes that the building society attracts employees who truly care about customer experience, supporting the business in achieving above average NPS.

1 https://www.retailbankerinternational.com/ comment/first-direct-nationwide-net-promoterscores-uk/

2 https://www.mirror. co.uk/money/hundredsmore-bank-branchesshut-31612288#

3 https://www.statista. com/statistics/1269776/ worldwide-organizations-talent-shortage-skillstech/#:~:text=The%20 drop%20in%20skills%20 shortages,a%20skills%20 shortage%20in%20tech.

4 https://www.kornferry. com/insights/this-weekin-leadership/talentcrunch-future-of-work

“Our lateral thinking approach, underpinned by extensive customer research, has given us a clear understanding of customer needs across the demographics. This is what sets us apart from competitors, and helps us to form our transformation strategy,” explained Ben.

While over 1000 highstreet bank branches closed in 2022 and 20232, YBS has made a commitment to branches, retaining the building society’s heritage whilst modernising the processes in branch.

Meanwhile, it has made significant investments into its mobile experience, which in the last four years has resulted in an increase of 12% to up to 80% of customers opening accounts digitally.

“Undertaking robust customer research has enabled us to invest into the business in the right way. This has paid off as we’ve seen the balance sheet almost double to £61 billion, a savings growth of 200%, and the ability to meet niche customer needs” said Ben.

Conquering Challenges

Research by Statista shows that over 54% of global organisations asked are experiences a skills shortage3, it is believed that by 2030 a predicted talent shortage of 85 million could result in about $8.5 trillion in unrealised annual revenues4

“A shortage in tech talent is one of our biggest challenges at the moment, as we’re all fighting for the same pool of talent, as well as how do we attract, nurture and retain that talent” shared Ben.

Whilst Ben believes that YBS offers an exciting, national opportunity for prospective employees to work for a business that is purpose driven, the building society is also taking steps to bolster attraction through its purpose.

“We are offering apprenticeships into tech roles, which fulfils our value of social inclusion, whilst also helping to drive the business forward,” explained Ben, “the

new world of technology offers plenty of opportunities for businesses to lean into,” he continued.

Ben sees opportunity in the integration of AI, which he believes will help to create greater efficiencies in sentiment tracking, whilst also offering a more personalised service to customers.

“Ultimately, integration of new technology has to be at the benefit of our customers, and AI offers a really exciting opportunity in terms of customer experience. This won’t be at the detriment to our people though, as we still need amazing people to deliver to our members,” shared Ben.

From an employee perspective, Ben believes that the integration of technology such as AI could help with the tech talent shortage, by lowering barriers to entry and supporting employees in their roles.

“We need to ensure we get this integration correct from the start, to ensure we remain trustworthy to our customers,” Ben added.

Joyful Experiences

With Chief Executive Officer, Susan Allen OBE, joining YBS in March 2023, and other Chief Officers onboarding, Ben commented that the business is entering an interesting and exciting period.

“Our purpose hasn’t changed, but our ambition has grown,” he said.

Moving forward, YBS will continue to invest across its channels, continuing to modernise its infrastructure and data capabilities, underpinned by its internal ethos of creating “joyful experiences”.

“We want to build on the foundation that we have created in the last four years, with the energy and ambition that we have garnered during our transformation journey,” said Ben. www.ybs.co.uk

Together, it’s Possible

Our services cover a wide range of capabilities to provide an end-to-end ecosystem for our customers, including:

• Product Development & Delivery Support

• Design & Strategy Support

• Engineering & Cloud

• Managed Services

• Transformational Leadership & Support

What makes us Burendo is the combination of the pragmatic that drives projects and the care and commitment that builds relationships.

To us, it’s a balancing act between a focus on delivery and bringing to life the values that makes being Burendo a great experience for us all.

The values we stand behind:

• A pragmatic attitude to delivery

• Make great things happen

• People showing they care

• Share what we learn

We have a relentless attitude to Product Delivery and Engineering and currently work in challenging environments and complex work-streams with the brightest minds and agile thinkers around.

YORKSHIRE BUILDING SOCIETY

www.ybs.co.uk

info@busenq.com

www.busenq.com

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