Video technology has been a vital component in Nationwide’s reorganisation efforts during the pandemic, according to the building society’s director of change and continuous improvement.

The UK’s largest building society was already piloting video tech before COVID-19, but found it had to move from a small pilot of only 10 financial planning managers and scale it out across the company so customers could continue to interact with mortgage consultants and financial managers remotely.

Vikki Williams, who’s been change and continuous improvement director at Nationwide for three years, discussed the building society’s journey to transformational change at today’s Branch Transformation digital conference.

Williams explained that, especially as customers now had more time on their hands, it was critical to continue interacting with them, and so chose to deploy a fully secure and recorded process via video calling service 24sessions.

“Digital will be a critical part of our member experience, but we will be there for the moments that matter,” said Williams. “We have found that members have embraced digital but still crave human interactions at critical moments; we will be focussing on striking the right balance.”

Williams described how the building society has three ‘Member Missions’ achieved by breaking down barriers, organising non-hierarchal teams and collaborating across the society’s communities to reorganise with the flow of member needs.

She said it was always in Nationwide’s plans to shift to more digital channels but coronavirus has accelerated this area within the business.

“In terms of Member Missions, technology is key, and each Mission has its own CIO, working with other leaders around the table,” explained Williams.

Williams also told delegates how the business has been using meaningful data and insight to recognise areas of focus that will increase their ‘Right First Time’ strategy, remove waste and enhance member journeys.

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