Principality Case Study

Background

Principality Building Society was established 150 years ago and is now the 6th largest building society in the UK, with £7 billion in assets.

As a mutual society, it is owned by and run for the benefit of its 500,000 customers. The Society operates 65 outlets, including 52 branches across Wales and 13 agency counters.

Committed to delivering excellent service and value to its members, Principality sought contact centre support for its product campaigns and business continuity needs. To achieve this, it partnered with a provider that shared its customer-first approach.

On-demand contact centre support

The Principality selected Answer4u as an outsourced partner with the capability of providing highly flexible and scalable contact centre solutions, often with very little notice. 

Whilst the Society has its own in-house call centre, fluctuating call volumes generated by press coverage and partner activity meant that their internal resources could not always manage peak demand.

The Principality needed an outsourced solution that could:

• Scale quickly – Handling high volumes of product information requests and customer enquiries.
• Support internal teams – Freeing in-house staff to focus on complex customer issues.
• Provide business continuity – Ensuring seamless service during unexpected disruptions.
• Respond at short notice – Deploying additional support as and when needed.

To meet these challenges, Principality partnered with Answer4u for a highly flexible and scalable contact centre solution.

Flexible and scalable call handling

Answer4u provided a tailored call-handling service designed to integrate seamlessly with Principality’s operations. Their immediate requirements included:

• A product information pack line, handling hundreds of daily enquiries and forwarding details to the Society’s fulfilment partner.
• A best buy information request line, assisting prospective customers with queries based on an evolving product knowledge base.

Integrated disaster recovery solution

In addition, the Society recognised that an integral Disaster Recovery solution would also be required to provide support in the event of the in-house contact centre being unavailable.

In this situation, Answer4u’s call agents were required to advise callers of the current situation and capture contact details for a call back once the Society’s centre was back on-line.

Fortunately, this facility has not been activated but resources are required to be available to handle potentially thousands of calls in a day.

Enhanced customer support and operational resilience

Answer4u’s UK-based contact centre, robust technology, and agent training ensured that services were delivered consistently by call agents rather than a dedicated team. This model provided cost efficiency while maintaining a seamless customer experience. 

This outsourced call handling solution ensured best value for the Society and the same informed response to their callers at any time of day.

Benefits:

• Consistent customer service, even with seasonal call fluctuations.
• Built-in business continuity, ensuring uninterrupted support.
• Overflow handling, supporting the in-house contact centre.
• Complete outsourcing of information request lines, freeing up valuable in-house experts.
• End-to-end performance tracking, with insights into call sources.

Through its partnership with Answer4u, Principality Building Society strengthened its customer service operations, ensuring it can met demand while maintaining exceptional service levels.