The Cambridge Building Society

When The Cambridge Building Society decided to update their legacy finance system they knew they had to choose a technology that would keep the customer at the heart of everything they do. The Cambridge, founded in 1850, provides funding for people buying their own homes and offers a trusted place for people wanting to save.

The award-winning building society is popular with customers looking for residential and buy-to-let mortgages on properties located in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire and Suffolk.

As part of their Customer First programme, The Cambridge researched and reviewed the full range of appropriate technical solutions, before choosing DPR’s core banking system. Michael Stead, Customer Experience Manager at The Cambridge said “Our new IT partner is an expert in delivering IT systems. We felt it was just as important that we found an expert in delivering IT training.”

With their services in constant demand it was important for the business to have as little downtime as possible so that they could continue to provide a great customer experience. “Training staff, for us, was completely business-critical,” said Michael. “It was really important that we were able to ensure that our customers weren’t impacted during the IT transition.”

With this requirement driving the project, The Cambridge chose Optimum as their business systems end-user training provider. Knowing how important customers are to The Cambridge, Optimum worked collaboratively with them to develop a training programme that would reflect the customer’s journey and experience. So, each new functionality was taught to end users in the context of how it benefitted the customer.

As well as understanding how important The Cambridge’s customers were to them, Optimum also took the time to grasp the client’s values.

“The thing that stood out most for me about Optimum was the fact that they really got us. This was more than just our business requirements,” says Michael. “What they really understood was our culture, and they got just how important that was to us.”

Optimum’s end-user-focused, bespoke training programme was developed to give all 186 staff (across 19 different sites) a full understanding of the new environment. The training modules included Finance, Mortgages and Savings, as well as generic introduction/navigation materials.

The reference guides and quick cards for these modules have been used on a day-to-day basis, and The Cambridge has also started to integrate these in to their new starter induction programme.

Michael says, “We’ve also been left with a legacy of training skills and expertise which our team of super users now have – which is fantastic.”

After go live, Michael reviewed the training programme delivered by Optimum saying “The reason we chose Optimum was firstly, their focus on the customer experience throughout. Secondly, their wealth of experience in IT transitions of similar-sized projects to ours. But ultimately, it was their professionalism and approach to training which really impressed us.”