MorganAsh, the support services provider to the financial services and utilities sectors, has appointed customer experience (CX) and customer vulnerability specialist James Edmonds as a Consumer Duty consultant.
James will be working closely with the senior team at MorganAsh to support the company’s customer vulnerability proposition, and to help more firms across different financial sectors to implement MARS – the MorganAsh Resilience System – as a key part of their customer journey. He has a wealth of experience in managing customer vulnerability from both inside financial services organisations, as well as in interpretating the FCA’s regulations – to enable businesses to be compliant and achieve a competitive advantage.
He has operated in CX and strategy roles across financial services for nearly two decades, having worked for established brands such as L&G, RSA, More Than, JUST, James Hay and Nucleus. Alongside starting his own consultancy Duty CX, James is commercial director at Investor in Customers, focusing on growth and strategic development of its Consumer Duty and CX propositions.
With IIC, James worked closely with Andrew Gething and MorganAsh, launching a new partnership to incorporate customer vulnerability data from MARS into IIC’s suite of Consumer Duty reports. This provides firms with more detailed outcome reports that are correlated for consumer characteristics and meet both the evidence and reporting requirements of Consumer Duty.
James Edmonds said: “As I first expanded into the world of customer vulnerability and Consumer Duty, it quickly became clear that MorganAsh is a driving force in that community. It’s been great to get to know Andrew and to work with MorganAsh and see the full capabilities of its MARS platform and its data. In this consultancy role, my aim is to work with the team to help firms roll out MARS and adopt its proven Consumer Duty proposition, all while supporting MorganAsh’s efforts from both a CX and a commercial perspective.
“Through MARS, MorganAsh offers a unique proposition, enabling firms to see where vulnerable customers are being treated better, or more commonly, poorly compared to those without vulnerabilities. This is a really key perspective to have and enables advisers and firms to deliver better ‘in the moment’ customer service to vulnerable customers which hasn’t really existed before in financial services. It’s a really intelligent way to deal with such a serious issue that’s good for the customer and good for the organisation, and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in.”
Andrew Gething, managing director of MorganAsh, added: “Having known and worked with James for several years, I know his expertise and insight will be hugely valuable as our MARS platform and our wider proposition helps more firms navigate both Consumer Duty and customer vulnerability. Firms across a variety of financial sectors are realising just how critical it is to have the right technology and robust data to not just meet their regulatory requirements, but to deliver a service that meets the demands of their customers.
“When it comes to Consumer Duty or customer vulnerability more broadly, MARS continues to answer those skills and knowledge gaps among firms, all while generating the necessary information and intelligence for firms to improve service and provide evidence for the regulator. This is a valuable proposition and one that is achieving real success in identifying, monitoring and supporting vulnerable customers.”
MorganAsh launched its award-winning MARS platform to help firms understand and monitor vulnerable customers and deliver good outcomes – as required by Consumer Duty. It is in use across financial services and the utilities sector, enabling businesses to adopt a consistent approach to identifying vulnerable characteristics and generate an objective Resilience Rating – much like a credit score.
