Customer Service in the Mutual Fund Industry

Mutual fund companies receive a huge number of calls during the new fund offer (NFO) period (immediately after the NFO closure and before the net asset value (NAV) gets listed) from customers to know about the application status and units allocated against their application. All that the mutual fund companies have to do during this period is to convey to the customer the folio number generated for him/units allocated and inform that a statement would follow soon.

Customers also call during the day to know NAV status of various funds. This is where the challenge lies for most of the fund houses. Big fund houses manage almost as high as 40 to 50 different schemes and the customer gets lost on the interactive voice response (IVR) to know the NAV.

Since AMCs are competing with banks in deposits, they attract a lot of customers who are moving some of their monies to MFs from banks and they expect all the functionalities a bank account typically offers. These would include Internet based purchase/redemptions, telephone based purchase/redemptions, switching between schemes etc. Offering liquidity and switching between accounts is the need of the hour to attract more techno-savvy new generation customers.

Solution

Avaya’s Contact Center solutions can help the fund houses here. The existing customers can be identified by their folio number. New NFO customers can be identified by their application number for self service. The contact center can aid prospective customers with fund philosophies and other details about the NFO. The contact center (CC) solution can:

  • Explain the fund/scheme philosophies to the customers
  • Keep customers informed about their investments and latest NAVs
  • Keep customers informed about fund performances over specific periods of time
  • Keep customers informed about dividend announcements
  • Keep customers informed about the top-5 holdings and sectorial weightage in the schemes of specific funds
  • Provide secure authentication to customers to access their folio information
  • Give customers their transaction information
  • Speak personally with investors on their queries/complaints and offer timely support
  • Take up customers’ requests like statements, SIP request, address changes, nominations etc. and support them by saving time through branch visits
  • Take transactional requests like redemptions and switch between fund schemes
  • Online automation of customers’ application/allocation status during NFOs

Contact centers can also help fund houses meet the distributor’s needs. The retail distributor can be identified by his ARN (AMFI registration number) and T-pin. Additionally the CC can:

  • Provide secure authentication to access fund house
  • Provide account/commission information
  • Automate requests like marketing information, forms for schemes and requests for statements
  • Provide timely and cost effective support on distributor queries/complaints