How Exizent are transforming the bereavement process within Financial Services – a Q&A
Driven by our mission of improving the bereavement process for everyone involved, Exizent are taking strides to help financial services institutions deliver exceptional customer experiences during these difficult times. To help us on this journey we’re pleased to announce the appointment of Paul Holroyd as Sales Director for our institutions business.
We sat down with Paul to learn about his background, how Exizent can help institutions enhance their bereavement processes and why the software will be powerful in transforming the industry.
Paul, tell us about your professional background, leading up to your current role as Sales Director at Exizent.
I’ve been involved with technology companies (mainly software) for several decades. My first role straight out of university was with a cutting-edge publisher marrying data & software to produce applications incorporating key reference works like world climate change data with global digital mapping. From this, I became intrigued by the endless possibilities of combining data and software.
I was very lucky to do a lot at quite a young age – marketing, writing business cases, reviewing legal contracts, travelling widely on sales trips – so I had early exposure to many potential directions for my career. Ultimately, I chose the commercial route via sales & marketing as I really enjoyed building relationships and solving customer problems (plus I got to travel a lot).
I’ve had numerous sales & commercial leadership roles in technology companies over the years and have also undertaken more general management/Board roles such as SVP Strategy and as CEO of a global software company. In terms of domain expertise, this ranges from crime & intelligence analysis to protection of critical national infrastructure, and from high-value manufacturing to fighting complex fraud in Banking, Finance & Insurance.
What influenced your move to Exizent?
My move to Exizent was a bit unexpected. I’d just finished a contract role and was looking around for my next venture when I came across an advert for a role with Exizent. As I started to learn about the company, I was struck by the work they were doing to make the bereavement experience better.
Both founders had first-hand experience of how difficult it is to deal with and settle a close relative’s estate, and I’d recently lost my brother so could relate entirely to what they’d been through. I contacted Nick Cousins, CEO and Founder to discuss the business and the opportunity, and then met Aleks Tomczyk, COO and Founder, as well as a few other employees.
“I soon realised that this was a very exciting proposition to be a part of, where technology could really help bereaved individuals and it was obvious that there was an incredibly passionate team behind it.”
I’ve previously sought out companies who, aside from being commercially focused, perform a net social good and the world is a better place for having them in it. Exizent is no exception – their mission performs a social good and that purpose motivates and excites me.
How can Exizent software benefit institutions?
Institutions are an important element in a deceased’s estate as they hold certain assets and/or liabilities of the decedent. Tier1 banks and building societies with tens of millions of customers deal with hundreds of thousands of bereavement cases each year. Irrespective of size, each institution wants to offer the best and most empathetic customer-centric journey for the bereaved notifiers – many of whom won’t even be their customers
It is an incredibly stressful time for the notifier. They often have to give the same details to lots of separate organisations as they try to settle the deceased’s affairs. The processes involved in their dealings with institutions and legal services often only exacerbate the stress – they’re highly manual and repetitive, prone to the loss of important documents, and leave little time available for engaging with empathy. All the friction inherent in these processes makes it difficult to provide any kind of optimised customer journey.
The Exizent solution helps solve these problems by removing friction in the bereavement notification process, reducing repetitive tasks and data entry, and compressing the timescale for case resolution and settlement of an estate – creating an enhanced customer journey at a time of significant vulnerability. Further benefits include a significantly reduced cost to serve for the institution, the mitigation of risk and fraud, and an opportunity to offer empathetic engagement to customers – creating the possibility to establish a positive lasting impression at a key inter-generational wealth transfer point.
“The Exizent solution helps solve these problems by removing friction, reducing repetitive tasks and data entry, and compressing the timescale for case resolution”
Where are Exizent now on their journey to supporting institutions?
Since launching in 2020 Exizent has made great strides in legal services where our SaaS solution now manages hundreds of probate cases every day. We’re now launching our SaaS bereavement notification solution for financial services and are currently in discussions with several Tier1 & Tier2 institutions wishing to pilot the system. It’s a very exciting time and the team is delighted to be helping financial services institutions provide the best possible customer journey at a time when it is needed the most.
What are you hoping to achieve in your role and how will you go about this?
The key driver for me is to ensure that our solution solves our financial services customers’ problems and meets their targets for better customer engagement and service – providing an enhanced customer journey that simplifies processes and drives down unnecessary costs.
Exizent do this by reducing the amount of manual processing involved, incorporating better controls like notifier authentication, and reducing cost and risk wherever possible. Our Service Design-led approach to solution development means we work closely with each customer to ensure we meet their needs. One institution describes it as creating journeys that pass the ‘Mother Test’ – where all customers are treated in the way their teams would wish for their own mothers to be treated. That captures our vision to create strong partnerships with customers based on shared values that provide the best customer experience for vulnerable people.
What institutions are you targeting and why?
We’re engaging with a whole spectrum of financial services organisations from banks with 30 million customers to building societies with 10 thousand customers. We’re also seeing keen interest from share registrars and some of the largest providers of savings and investment products in the UK.
What are the top 3 benefits you expect institutions to get from the platform?
Reduced cost to serve/risk
Faster bereavement case resolution
Less stress for vulnerable customers (+ increased staff wellbeing)
What are you most looking forward to in your role?
Developing strong long-lasting partnerships with institutions that solve their problems and enable us to deliver on our promise of making the bereavement process better for all involved. It sounds simple because it is that simple.