Yorkshire Building Society teams up with Capriza to power mobile customer strategy

Capriza, a leader in enterprise mobility for business applications, today announced Yorkshire Building Society, one of the UK’s biggest financial services providers with 3.2m customers and 4,500 employees, has selected the Capriza platform to help transform its mobile customer experience.

The Society, best known for providing good long term value mortgages and savings accounts, manages £39.6bn assets online and through 208 branches across England, Scotland and Wales. In a highly competitive, low-interest market, it can be difficult for consumers to identify the right mortgage for them.

After reviewing its website analytics and based on conversations with customers, the Society’s management team recognised the need for enhanced digital and mobile capabilities as more customers wanted to connect and apply for its mortgages and savings accounts through mobile devices. To respond to today’s mobile demand, the Society, which was founded over 150 years ago to help people build their own homes and save for the future, chose Capriza to help deliver its existing website content in an up-to-the-minute mobile format.

Explaining why Capriza fitted the bill, Nick Mortimer, Head of Marketing and E-Commerce, at Yorkshire Building Society, said: “We want the richest experience possible for our customers however they connect with us. Capriza enables this with very little code integration, speeding our time to market with our new mobile offerings.”

The mobile solution is part of a joined-up corporate strategy where the website sits alongside the branch network and Contact Centre to provide customers with an easy, simple experience that can be accessed whenever and wherever customers need.  Capriza’s technology translates screens from the existing desktop website into a format that is optimised for mobile devices, without the need for complex development on Yorkshire Building Society’s core systems. This allows customers viewing their account or applying for products using a smartphone to see information more clearly and in a way that meets the stringent regulatory demands of the Financial Services sector.

Mortimer added “Previously our website was not responsive, or optimised, for the mobile device being used. Capriza renders a version of our existing content that responds, regardless of whether a user happens to be on an iPhone, iPad or Android device. The beauty of the Capriza solution is that it sits on top of our existing technology. With this new mobile solution, we expect to see improved customer experience and better commercial outcomes.”

Russell Acton, VP and GM, International at Capriza, welcomed the joint working with Yorkshire Building Society: “YBS recognised the need to adapt the multi-channel customer experience to the demands of modern mortgage applicants and savers. In today’s financial services markets, user interfaces that provide better experiences for customers regardless of the device they are using are a winning formula. Together we are creating a cost-effective, winning platform for one of the UK’s leading Financial Services organisations.” 

Capriza beat a number of competitors to partner with the Society after demonstrating its technology running against the existing website. Describing Capriza’s role in the implementation process, Nick Mortimer commented: “Capriza has been very helpful, supportive and focused on the delivery of the solution. We’ve built a strong and effective working relationship and I have every confidence in it being successful.”