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You know how the customer journey goes: awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty and advocacy.
But where does a customer in financial difficulty fit into that equation?
How can businesses rethink the customer journey in order to support everybody, and ultimately rehabilitate customers who are struggling back into the journey?
In this episode we're joined by Paul Chong, co-founder and COO of Ophelos.
Transcript
Hi, Paul.
Hey Emma.
What are we gonna talk about today?
You were the one that was going to decide what we talked about today. So I believe we're gonna talk about customer journeys. Is that right?
Yeah, absolutely, shall we get started! So currently, where do you think debt fits into the customer journey?
If I'm honest, I don't think it fits. Most companies, whether they be large organizations, corporate entities, FinTechs, startups, they spend an awful lot of energy and do a really good job on onboarding customers, thinking about the services and remedying any service issues, but when it comes to a customer who can't afford to pay because of some life event or some issue they have in their current circumstances, you find that the journey completely changes and it's completely different from the original journey.
There is no continuation. Largely speaking, the processes and systems put in place are completely different. The customer feels alienated. They don't feel like they're part of that brand. Yeah, it's broken.
So what's the solution?
Companies need to think differently, first and foremost. They need to think about this idea of creating what I would term as a "virtuous loop" on the customer journey. They need to think very carefully about building and developing product, but they also need to think about this idea of rehabilitation. That's an opportunity to put people back into the original customer journey, but it's also this idea of being able to help customers solve for themselves. And that could even mean signposting them to the right debt advice, making sure they get the right help through the journey, and I think that plays largely to this idea of having that social responsibility as a company to look after all your customers, whatever situation they may find themselves in.
Yeah. So by treating customers fairly and giving them ownership, what are the outcomes that you'd expect to see?
Yeah. This idea of ownership is a good one. We like customers to feel like they can control their own destiny, feel like they can choose. We know from our product and behavioral scientists team that that's what people want to do.
We believe fundamentally that you can create great outcomes for companies and customers at the same time that those two are not mutually exclusive, there's an opportunity for companies to rehabilitate customers, there's an opportunity to recover more of the money outstanding, but at the same time for customers to find resolution to their long term debt issues.
And you achieve that, as we've already said, through this idea of giving customers back control of their debt journeys, giving them that immersive experience and giving great customer service back at the same time. Considering where we are right now in the cost of living crisis that we are currently facing, what better time has there ever been to think about how you solve for your customers who can't afford to pay.
This is a mini series brought to you by Ophelos the Ethical Debt Platform. If you want to know more, follow us on LinkedIn or read our latest blog post at content.ophelos.com. Thanks for listening!
