Improving the customer experience 

• improve the customer experience
• simplify and modernise the complex IT infrastructure and reduce the cost base of the business
• manage the declining book of business while retaining customers where possible

Our Approach
We launched a transformation programme which involved consolidating existing UK contact centres and repatriating call centre work from our client's operations in India, a sustained employee communication and training programme, rationalising IT systems, and streamlining the client's back office processes.

1. Seamless transition: starting in June 2009, we transferred services from AXA's centres in Bristol, Coventry, Basingstoke, Pune and Bangalore to Capita. This involved transferring 1,150 people in the UK and a further 550 in India with no disruption to customer service.
2. People development: a sustained employee communication and training programme helped to integrate new staff into a service-oriented outsourcing environment. We offer employees significant training opportunities and currently have 45 people on Modern Apprenticeship Schemes and others working towards Institute of Customer Service awards and financial services qualifications.
3. Contact centre programme: when we signed the contract in 2009, some customer calls were being handled by AXA's India-based operation. Over 15 months we successfully repatriated customer and IFA calls from Bangalore and consolidated existing UK contact centres in Bristol, Basingstoke and Coventry to our voice services Centre of Excellence in Craigforth.
4. Systems rationalisation: at first we used AXA's desktop and business applications to deliver services. We have since connected AXA's IT to our own so that AXA and Friends Provident applications can be accessed from our systems.
5. Back office programme: the key to our process improvement programme was Dolphin, our image and workflow system. Scanning and indexing with Dolphin allows a high degree of automation and gives operational managers the tools and techniques to drive both efficiency and consistent service delivery in the UK and India. We are now relocating residual back office processing from Basingstoke and Coventry to Bristol, which will lead to further process improvements.

The Result
Just over a year into the partnership we have already reached several key milestones. A smooth transition was followed by the successful repatriation of call centre work from India to the UK. The UK relocation programme was completed 8 months ahead of schedule and 100 new roles have been created in Craigforth. The transformation programmes we have implemented will bring further efficiency and cost improvements over the next 12 months.


*In September 2010, most of the business we were administering was transferred to Friends Provident when the majority of AXA Sun Life was acquired by Resolution, which also owns Friends Provident.