PERSONAL PROFILE

I am looking for the next role in my career to bring me to a managerial or a full time compliance oversight capacity. I have been working for the past year as a coach for new starts, managing them on a daily basis and latterly as a Quality Assurance Auditor, an occasional oversight capacity for a leading Car Finance company. I have had experience working in the telecommunications, healthcare, debt collection & car finance industries. I am now looking to move up in the compliance world hopefully in a management/oversight role that will demand even more of me as a professional. I am already well versed in my regulations with the FCA, ICO, FLA, FOS & CSA. I’m also willing to learn about more regulatory bodies to further expand my knowledge.

Skills

•         Works well under pressure.

•         Experienced working with vulnerable customers.

•         Experienced working within a team and as an individual in a compliance capacity.

•         Experience managing a group of people in a team, ensuring KPI’s are met and key SLA targets are met.

•         Has experience with different call structures, audit quality structures and call management software.

•         Has experience with improving GDPR and Regulatory processes.

•         Has experience coaching others and improving overall quality within others with SMART objectives and other coaching styles.

•         Has played a key role in implementing a new Vulnerability Process – ensuring Consumer Duty driven outcomes are being met for customers.

•         Has experience in identifying risk and trends to improve overall compliance.

•         Has the experience and ability to ask/do the basics needed to get the job done when things haven’t went to plan previously.

•         Has the experience and ability to ask/do the extras when things have went to plan. This is the “value add” approach learned whilst being coached and coaching others to ensure we are demanding the very best of quality from ourselves and others.

•         Has the experience, knowledge and ability needed to implement an attention to detail approach whilst working/auditing calls and accounts.

•         Has had experience liaising and collaborating with all levels of management and clients.

•         Has experience working in a compliance oversight position, regularly improving frameworks, quality structures and overall internal policy.

•         Knows the new Consumer Duty & has been an influential player in ensuring that this was implemented immediately before the 31^st July 2023.

Key Attitudes

•        Determined.

•        Hardworking.

•        Ambitious.

•        Resilient.

•        Prefers to be prepared and organised.

•        Customer, client, regulatory and company minded.

•        Positive.

•        Eager to learn and improve.

•        Diligent.

•        Professional.

•        Open to constructive criticism.

Recent Work History

PRA GROUP 09/2019 – 08/2022 – CUSTOMER SUPPORT AGENT/TRAINING AS CALL AND AUDIT QUALITY ASSOCIATE

In August 2019 I started working with PRA Group – a debt collection company. This was initially as a Customer Support Case Specialist. I trained on how to use many different techniques to speak with customers who may be the most vulnerable in todays society. I was trained to turn calls and escalations around and uphold the best quality possible. I learned how to draft letters and emails and have also done account work on several systems. I have developed techniques in my escalation calls with particularly vulnerable and high risk customers to ensure I am giving them the best experience possible. I used techniques such as the listening wheel (to ensure I am doing the best I can to prevent high risk situations on call) and TEXAS (Thank, Explain, Xplicit Consent, Ask and Signpost) to ensure we are obtaining highly sensitive information correctly in accordance with the Information Commissioners Office, as well as using organisations such as Free Debt Advice or Mental Health Support etc to signpost customers to, so they can get the best support. I have also learned other techniques such as BRUCE (Behavior, Remember, Understand, Communication and Evaluation). This technique is used to assess the customer’s ability to deal with us on call.

I was given extra responsibility by PRA Group and took over the FIRC Letters (Failed Insolvency Return to Collections Letters) which were being sent to customers who have had failed insolvencies. I was working off excel spreadsheets and pulling reports in regards to failed Direct Debits & Broken Arrangements within the department. I was responsible for the Data Bundle Checks with letters, should there be sensitive information going out within our correspondence (such as copies of original contracts or other data related requests being sent to the customer).

Additionally, later in my tenure, I was managing other agents to then call these accounts and get an update from these customers to find out why these plans/insolvencies failed. I was also given the chance to start coaching other agents and new starts. I was doing audit and call quality as well as coaching people on the developments and key achievements of their audited accounts and call scores, to ensure these agents knew what needed to be improved but also what they needed to keep doing within their work. I was taught how to use different techniques to coach agents and also how to use call monitoring software to pull calls. I was also given extra access to the systems we were using, to pull random accounts for an audit check. Additionally, I worked in liaison with the Operations Manager of the department, who would feed back audited accounts performed by the clients we were serving (such as Barclays, Tesco Bank, Lloyds Bank etc). Any development points or audited actions needed to be performed on these accounts were given to myself to rectify immediately.

At this time, I was looking for a more permanent role within PRA Group to continue my own development within coaching. Unfortunately, I wasn’t given this desired role on a permanent basis, so had to start looking elsewhere.

CAPQUEST (VIRGIN MONEY) 08/22 – 01/23 – CALL QUALITY ASSOCIATE & GRAD BAY COACH

I moved from PRA Group to Capquest to help them with their Credit Cards Collections department. Our department was primarily for live reporting debt. Before joining this job, I had only dealt with defaulted debt, so this was a learning curve for me. Now, I know how to deal with both live reporting and defaulted debt. I was finally given an opportunity to go into Coaching  and management within this temporary role. I worked with primarily new start agents within a grad-bay environment doing sim-calls with them to ensure they were in a position to be released onto the main floor for Virgin Money as collections associates. I liaised with the main client – Virgin Money, our internal Call Quality department, the Team Leaders of each agent and Operations Manager of the department, to ensure that these new agents are getting all the coaching needed to ensure quality results are achieved beyond their release from Grad Bay. I coached the new starts with SMART objectives. Using this technique, I have been able to build sound working relationships with these agents to ensure that they have achievable and realistic goals in mind to get them to the next level and to ensure quality is at a high standard in a timely manner. I have also used the VARK model to ensure that I, as a coach, am tailoring my approach to the agent, to ensure I am coaching in the most effective way possible. Some agents like Visual learning where they watch auditory actions on a system and then repeat for themselves as well as ask questions surrounding this. Some prefer Reading based learning instead. I have been trained as a coach to ensure I can cater for all different types of learning styles whilst coaching agents. On top of this, I was also responsible to pull PDF reports on the different long and short term plans these new start agents were putting customers accounts on. These plans were available options provided to us by the client, Virgin Money, to help customers in financial difficulties. The demands by the client was to have everything discussed relating to these plans noted on the account audit (after the call) as well as have the accounts properly worked. For example, these plans meant permanent blocks on the cards, no interest on the customer’s accounts, changing statement amounts, setting up multiple promises to pay etc. So I was responsible for checking these plans, providing any feedback to agents via coaching, as well as ensuring any remedial actions were being completed should that be applicable. I was acting as first line of defense for the agents, the customers and the client by checking these plans. I was also working as a temporary team leader at this time for them to settle into the company. I gained experience managing my own team, ensuring KPI’s were being met, ensuring all face to face meetings were done (such as absence reviews, performance reviews and overall coaching reviews/management) whilst generally managing each person in a unique and tailored way.

This role was only temporary and I moved onto a more permanent compliance oversight role.

CARMONEY FINANCE – QUALITY ASSURANCE AUDITOR (OVERSIGHT) 02/23 – PRESENT

I was given a permanent role at CarMoney Finance as a Quality Assurance Auditor. During my time at CarMoney, I have been given more responsibility as time has went on during my tenure. I have been part of a 4 person team for the whole company, creating compliance infrastructure, providing coaching, doing car dealership checks to ensure they are fit for purpose for both our customers & business and ensuring the company is fully ready for Consumer Duty going live on 31^st July 2023.

I successfully implemented clear organisational framework changes and improvements within our sales team. I worked with raw data from reports to identify weaknesses & risk points to do this and implemented things such as a new vulnerability process for the company. I created a full process where the company was able to identify what a vulnerable customer was and to refer it to the appropriate department so that they could look further into supporting the customer. The way I managed this was by liaising with our systems experts to ensure that agents had the option to raise each customer profile as “potentially vulnerable” which would then send an email notifying the team that dealt with these cases. From there, the team would look into the situation and either flag it as “not vulnerable” or “vulnerability confirmed” and provide the next steps. After the Pre Contract Information call had been done with the customer, with all accommodations being met, the team would then inform the lender of the vulnerability and update this as such on the account. I also created a fully signed off compliance Customer Vulnerability Guide for the company to ensure that every front facing and management employee were familiarised with our new vulnerability process and were meeting customers needs, especially for good outcomes (chapter 10 of consumer duty – Culture, Governance and Accountability). This guide had new techniques the company hadn’t used before and I collaborated with others within the company to create this document in full, before it was then processed for training on a company wide roll out. This included TEXAS being trained out for the first time, FCA key drivers for vulnerability being trained, what we should be identifying from the four main hey drivers of vulnerability, how to deal with these situations & a list of charities, companies and governmental support groups to signpost our customers to, should they need any additional support.

I have also helped develop the companies approach to ensuring Consumer Duty was being compliantly followed as per this going live recently. I worked hand in hand with the training department to ensure this was rolled out on an organisational front and even created a shortened version of the 144 page consumer duty document the FCA released, ensuring that key points relating to our company were easier to read and find. I created a full new regulatory read off called Demands & Needs to ensure we were advising customers of our duties to them, offering all products with all information at all times to ensure we were treating them fairly as per the new cross cutting rules of Section 5 of Consumer Duty.

When I first joined the company, I was at the center of creating a new approach for the company regarding the car dealerships we are working with on a daily basis. This was by me being at the center of setting up a Dealer Checks process for the Quality Assurance team. I made a documented checklist for the compliance team to ensure that dealerships were meeting the following criteria before being an approved dealership to work with: Their website quality (including the age of their domain to avoid pop up websites), quality of reviews, their finances, any CCJ’s, a review of the business done with them in the past, a director check (if needed), proof of premises, FCA registration status & ensure the dealers were on classified leads that we work with such as Autotrader, Motors.co.uk etc.

I have also been tasked with extra responsibility to carry out internal audits for the company. These varied from site audits – ensuring health and safety was being met, we were upholding the responsibilities we had within our tenancy contract with the landlord and ensuring that we were a GDPR compliant site (ensuring all information was being secured from within the building). I have also produced complaints audits, getting to the bottom of what caused complaints, identifying trends and knowledge gaps, providing feedback where necessary and ensuring that we were fully compliant with both the FCA & FOS within our approaches whilst resolving said complaints.

I am now looking to use my experience of creating new frameworks, structures, ability to identify risks & weaknesses, my management experience from Capquest and combine this with my extensive knowledge of the FCA & ICO to go onto new heights. I now wish to enter a management or new oversight capacity of some kind to continue my own development and to continue developing & empowering others who may need that support to get onto the next level of financial compliance.