Resolving credit issues faster with technology

A national credit bureau wanted a better way to resolve credit issues for consumers that would be transparent and trackable, especially for victims of identity theft and credit fraud. Consumers are especially sensitive to these issues in the wake of security breaches that have put their financial and credit data at risk. But the process to resolve credit reporting errors can be long and cumbersome.

The credit bureau had historically focused on the businesses that use their services and credit information, but recognized that they needed to better serve individual consumers. This was a significant shift and required rethinking the online services they offered. They set out to identify and prioritize the capabilities required to improve the consumer’s online experience.

The goal was to not only improve the consumer experience but to reduce the costly process to resolve issues. Today, a limited capacity for consumers to resolve their problems online translates into a heavy demand on the credit bureau’s call centers, especially during peak times — and costs to provide service through the call centers.

By providing consumers the ability to resolve their own issues online, consumers would gain control they expect and crave over their data and the credit bureau could strengthen its relationship with consumers, while at the same time reducing the service costs associated with manual and time-consuming processes.

The credit bureau chose to work with g2o to find a technology solution that could improve this process for both the company and consumers because of our customer strategy and technology expertise.

The credit bureau knew it needed something — but what? Our team helped the company evaluate three potential technology initiatives.

• The chatbot: Automation with answers
  This intelligent assistant is armed with immediate answers and even personalizes assistance with a consumer’s credit file. Available 24/7 and in the palms of their hands, the chatbot acts as a digital ally, putting consumers on the fast track to resolution.
• The tracker: Follow case progress in real time
  There is shared responsibility when addressing credit fraud and actions on both sides were done in the dark before the tracker. This tool captures every past interaction, outlines all next steps, and demystifies the whole process with a progress bar.
• The portal: Your anti-fraud headquarters
  Centralized and secure, the Portal is the holistic dashboard for credit score, dispute submissions, recent activity, supporting documents, and educational materials. Paper, mail, and support calls are officially obsolete as the entire dispute process is crystallized online.

g2o built a detailed transformation roadmap for each imperative. Features and costs were aligned to high-capability and low-capability options, enabling the credit bureau to empower its consumers.

Implementation of these three imperatives will have a positive effect on the credit bureau’s financial performance. By offering consumers self-service solutions, the credit bureau will reduce the costs of paper-based resolution and high call volume and duration.

The proposed initiatives will also help the credit bureau go beyond operational cost savings. The Tracker and ChatBot are solutions that can be turned into a product and made available to partner organizations eager to offer these enhancements to their own customers.

In addition, the innovations deployed will help improve customer loyalty and enable the credit bureau to create new revenue streams through new and enhanced service offerings.