The challenge

A major national financial advice firm was growing rapidly and had recently increased its adviser numbers, but its in-house business assurance team was struggling to keep up with the workflow. At times of particularly high demand, the team was under a lot of pressure and quality started to suffer as a result.

As with any scaling business going through operational and strategic changes, we knew our client needed to be able to manage the fluctuations in demand but without the hefty investment needed for sourcing, training and managing extra resource. Our flexible overflow service offered just that.

Our solution

Before getting to work, we spent a lot of time with our client’s internal team to understand its business standards and agree SLAs and turnaround times. We adopted our client’s file checking methodology and procedures to ensure consistency with the internal team and become a seamless extension of its business assurance function. To test it and iron out any issues, we carried out a pilot exercise.

With the processes in place, cases were then referred to us on an ongoing basis. The number of files to be checked varied month by month, but our flexible resource model meant we could quickly expand and contract to suit our client’s business needs.

Best of all, outsourcing the overflow means the client gets a regular independent view on the business written. To date, we’ve helped to identify trends where customers have not been treated fairly and where certain advisors have deviated from the firm’s business standards. As a result of our insights and recommendations, our client made changes to its adviser training programme, avoiding future regulatory action.

The TCC difference

• Our flexibility means that our client can keep business flowing during busy times while retaining high-quality assurance. This gives the client bandwidth and confidence to write even more business.
• Our client only pays for what it needs, helping it budget more effectively.
• As experts on the FCA’s expectations, we helped our client to manage risk by identifying emerging trends and potential threats within the sales process.