Financial services company, Investec Asset Finance plc (Investec) has over 15 years of experience in providing a wide range of asset finance solutions to the SME market. Investec prides itself on deep customer relationships built on mutual trust. Distinctive performance is one of four key values that shape the way it works, thriving on energy, ambition and outstanding talent and being open to fresh thinking. In 2022, Investec deployed Quadient Inspire to create a digital customer communications experience, starting with invoices.
The challenge: to digitise paper-based invoicing
Investec issues thousands of invoices a month, sometimes up to 9,000 in a day. It saw an opportunity to digitise its communications to improve productivity, drive cost savings and, most importantly, improve the customer experience.
Stuart Freemantle, Investec's Head of Treating Customers Fairly (TCF), Asset Finance, explains, "The biggest driver was the digitisation of our customer journey through communication. Consumers are used to interacting with banks digitally and receiving communications via means other than traditional post. That has started to move into the business world - if it can be done on personal accounts, and personal finance agreements, why not on business finance agreements?”
Stuart recognised that digitising outgoing communications would also deliver operational efficiencies, as staff would be freed-up from sorting physical mail. This would also improve scalability in the business because mail volumes could increase without necessarily needing to add more staff. In addition, digitisation would help improve the accounts receivable process, which involved manual chasing up of invoices, sometimes because they hadn’t reached the right person. “That isn’t efficient,” notes Stuart. “Also, our contract management system produced invoices ‘on the go’ - you couldn’t save copies. We wanted to develop a portal, so that when we distribute an invoice the customer can see it in their portal. For year-end accounting, and any other time they need to fill in missing invoices, they can do so themselves without having to come back to us.”
The process: Quadient Inspire’s proof of concept demonstrates possibilities
A sister company introduced Investec to Quadient to discuss the communications opportunity. Investec saw a brief demonstration and requested a proof of concept to show what digitising one of its processes involving customer interaction could look like.
“The proof of concept to the senior management team was very successful,” says Stuart. “It did everything we hoped it would.”
After some time spent exploring the contract management system that would underpin the communications, implementation of the Quadient solution began in 2022. Throughout, Stuart valued the good working relationship with Quadient’s Professional Services, Customer Success and Pre-sales teams. Quadient’s Professional Services team supported two rounds of staff training. The first for the technical team that would support the solution in life and the second, a larger group training session to upskill the staff that would use it. The team also facilitated additional training at short notice. Once the project moved to implementation phase, Stuart and the team worked with a Quadient Professional Services Project Manager and Consultants, who were equally based in Investec’s office for a proportion of the project to enable Investec’s team.
Solution: Quadient Inspire
Quadient Inspire enables organisations to create and deliver personalised customer communications across digital and traditional channels, from one centralised hub. It gives Investec control over the design and content of its communications through a version-controlled library, so authorised staff can create, modify and manage the communications portfolio. The simple-to-use system minimises reliance on IT support for everyday tasks. Investec developed an invoice template which is now used to generate invoices that can be sent to print and post or emailed directly to customers. “We saw ways to digitise the customer journey using the Inspire suite,” says Stuart. “The invoicing is going really well. We expect to see a reduction in the number of phone and email requests for copies of invoices as we approach financial year end because customers can access them themselves now, which they weren’t able to do before.”
Results: digitisation improves productivity and the customer experience
By consolidating communications and creating a template through Quadient Inspire, Investec has replaced 150 invoice variations that existed in the business with one, single consistent document format. This has been positive for brand reinforcement, which is very important to the business. Customer access to invoices through an online portal addresses the challenge Investec had of providing copies of invoices. This improves the customer experience and stands to reduce the volume of requests to regenerate and send invoices.
Digitised invoices also delivered an immediate productivity benefit as the office manager now spends less time on manual preparation and sending mail. Now, the team is beginning to track the benefit to accounts receivable, which had always lost time to chasing unpaid invoices. Stuart anticipates a reduction in days sales outstanding because of the new process, and expects return on investment to grow as the business scales its use of Quadient Inspire. Quadient Inspire also gives Investec more control as users can make updates to communications without needing to involve technical teams. This way, template changes can be actioned more quickly. Investec set out to digitise customer communications for a better experience, improved productivity and cost-saving opportunities.
It succeeded in centralising communications, increasing control and consistency and establishing a foundation for further digitisation. Working with Quadient, Investec was open to giving and receiving honest feedback in line with its culture for third-party partnerships. The two companies have established a strong working relationship to support Investec as it progresses with its communications transformation.
“A future phase is for all of our customer communications to be distributed electronically. When we do that, we expect to see cost savings. Our working relationship with Quadient has been really good; the team has been very patient and understanding. The Professional Services team were great to work with.”
