Is it Too Late to Streamline your Discretionary Commission Arrangements (DCA) Claims Process? Not With SmartIQ™
By Scott Draeger, SVP Product and Vertical Marketing at Smart Communications
With coverage ranging from the BBC to the Money Saving Expert, everyone is being made aware of potential claims against violations of the 2021 Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ban on rate-based dealer commissions bundles from auto finance lenders.
As the story gains coverage and filing deadlines are extended to December 4, 2025, consumers are being instructed to contact their dealer or lender to see if they have been impacted. There is no clear direction for consumers, and financial institutions are expecting to receive an influx of claims. Without intervention, confusion and frustration are the likely outcomes.
In this article, you’ll find helpful information on how to avoid these missteps, along with a better way to manage the DCA complaint process.
Are You Accidentally Creating Confusion?
As an auto lender, the decision to postpone action may be an expensive one. The cost of an unclear inbound call escalates quickly as the call moves through the contact center, increasing the cost, time, and frustration level. There has been no clear identification of what constitutes a claim, which creates chaos and opportunities to make data governance mistakes. What is clear is that potentially impacted customers have been instructed to contact their dealers and lenders, which means your contact center will receive the calls.
Lenders can eliminate confusion while removing frustration by accepting claims efficiently with a digital data collection experience that helps consumers gather the required information, provide the necessary information, and submit their claim. This puts lenders in a position to accept, evaluate, and process the claim as efficiently as possible during a difficult situation. A digital forms automation solution like SmartIQ handles even the most complex aprocesses and can rapidly implement applications like multiple vehicles per claimant, early payoffs, trade ins, fleet vehicles, and more.
What’s the Difference Between a Static PDF Form and Forms Automation?
If a customer decides to file a claim, it is best to quickly accept their claim, draw your conclusions, and make your response. Maybe this sounds like a job for a simple web form. But, a simple web form can cause more questions than it answers. A digital-first experience can add context to the experience with embedded videos, tooltips, and links to resources that can help a customer determine if they have a claim. These experiences build accessibility into the process, unlike typical legacy forms.
Digital experiences ensure data is entered correctly, documentation is uploaded, and consent has been documented before the claim is accepted, which improves straight through processing rates. Lastly, a digital experience continues after the customer hits “submit” and is part of the workflow that results in completion of the claim, keeping your customer informed to avoid incurring additional status calls to your organization.
In contrast, your static PDF forms are inflexible. From your customers’ perspective, they lack contextual help and are missing accessibility features many of your clients need. From your organizational perspective, the results often contain incorrect or incomplete information. Static forms also make it difficult for your organization to conform to your security standards regarding protected information, their loan number, registration numbers, and personal details. Smart forms automation experiences deliver the experience and drive completion of the process while supporting compliance.
As Coverage Increases, More Customers Will Submit Claims. Will You Be Ready?
As coverage continues and the deadline nears, more customers will check to see if they are eligible to make a claim. In order to avoid the expense of manually handling calls, it is time to consider how rapidly implementing a digital experience with SmartIQ can reduce the cost of DCA claims by offering a complete self-service experience that maximizes straight through processing and reduces the number of expensive inbound calls.
Ready to Streamline Your Organization’s DCA Complaint Process?
Learn more about how SmartIQ can help, request a demo.
About the Author
Scott Draeger is the SVP of Product Marketing and Vertical Solutions at Smart Communications. He has a passion for collaboration, and over 25 years of innovating customer communications technology, around the globe. He focuses on improving communications for the recipient while improving performance for the business. He started as a document designer using a collection of hardware and software technologies, before moving to the software side of the industry. He finds connections across disciplines with certifications in graphic design, customer experience, electronic documents, and an MBA in international business.