Client insight firm Investor in Customers (IIC) has launched a new Consumer Duty assessment service.

The company says it believes the service will help FCA regulated firms produce the data required by the FCA’s new requirements which were published in July.

The solution is designed to meet the new Consumer Duty rules and also give insights into areas such as monitoring consumer outcomes, a requirement of the new rules. 

The assessment comes in two parts, assessing internal preparedness for the new regime through surveying employees and external performance, surveying consumers.

For the internal survey, IIC has identified the 20 “most critical” internal drivers of Consumer Duty performance such as strategy, back book and third party suppliers. 

For the external customer survey, IIC has aligned the survey questions to a typical value chain, and the four consumer outcomes, so that the effectiveness of the customer journey can be measured and understood. This covers steps from initial sale to renewal and eventual exit.  

The cost of the reports is £4,500 for the individual employee or customer survey and £7,950 for the combined survey. 

James Edmonds, customer experience director at IIC said: “With less than 100 days until every regulated firm’s Consumer Duty implementation plan has to be in place, firms need to be focussed on quickly getting a handle on how well they are adhering to the imminent Consumer Duty rules, and to begin to ask the tough questions that it has been a little too scary to ask in the past.

“The FCAs final guidance on Consumer Duty is now with us, and it has delivered something that will be the catalyst that forces organisations to consider the customer, through their whole journey, all parts of the value chain, from promotion all the way through to exit or renewal.   

“Firms could be forgiven for expecting another ‘tick-box’ exercise given recent history, but this won’t be the case with Consumer Duty.”

The new rules will be phased in. Key deadlines are 31 July 2023 for new product and service sales and 31 July 2024 for closed products or services.