Credit Card Dispute Process Optimization

Tier 1 Canadian FI engages CRG to support the optimization of credit and debit fraud and non-fraud dispute processes

The Challenge

A Tier 1 Canadian bank, like many of its industry counterparts, was mandated by Visa Inc. to deploy a new credit card dispute platform as part of an overall global Visa infrastructure change.  The technology, Visa Resolve Online (VROL), is Visa’s proprietary online dispute resolution service. It is a dedicated network built to transmit and retrieve transaction data in the event of a dispute and is intended to simplify the overall dispute process.

The deployment of this new technology was mandated by a specific timeline, and would enable the bank to gain new efficiencies, however would require a new organizational design and the re-engineering and potential overhaul of existing credit card dispute processes, from customer contact, through to resolution.  

To further complicate the challenge, the bank was already in the process of deploying a leading 3rd party dispute resolution workflow solution, whose functionality, coupled with VROL, could provide for a very different future state operation.   The bank however needed guidance to determine the following:

1. What should the future state end to end flow of credit card disputes look like?
2. How do we leverage the technology features to both improve the end customer experience, and reduce FTE/costs within the operation?
3. What should the organizational design be in order to facilitate the operational changes?
4. What quantified sustainable benefits will the future state enable?

The Approach

The primary objective was to determine the impact of implementing the VISA changes within the banks Credit and Debit fraud and non-fraud dispute processes; to develop a prioritized roadmap to drive headcount savings and enhance customer experience. To achieve this, the following was done:

• Assessed existing capabilities and understood how VROL and the new workflow application will affect in-scope business processes, related FTE capacity and overall customer experience
• Developed a future state design that optimally leverages the functionality of VROL and/or new workflow platform
• Identified and quantified the headcount savings and enhanced customer experience opportunities as a result of the VISA changes, new workflow implementation and associated process changes
• Developed a prioritized roadmap to close all gaps through process improvement, organizational  design change and technology integration

The Outcome

The implementation of the new technology, future state processes and organizational design resulted in  the following benefits:

• Head count reduction of ~110 FTE
• Headcount and direct operational expense savings equating to ~ $6MM annually
• Highly improved customer experience and dispute resolution turnaround time
• Multi channel customer communication options
• First point of contact resolution  95%  (previously 30%)
• 75% reduction in decision turn around time