The document discusses the challenges faced by an aging building society that has become successful but struggles with outdated processes, inconsistency across branches, and customer dissatisfaction. A continuous improvement approach was implemented, focusing on redesigning key processes, particularly the savers account opening process, which led to reduced error rates and improved training methods. Achievements include a new standard operating procedure, streamlined forms, and enhanced flexibility for customers, significantly improving compliance and service consistency.

1. Improving The Processes Of A
Building Society
The Continuous Improvement Specialists
Stretching Your Boundaries

2. The Assignment
The Building Society was
established before 1900 and is the
oldest society in its area. It is a
successful, growing organisation
with excellent financial and
customer results. However, due to
its success the management team
felt the Society was “breaking at
the seams” and that a number of
processes had become outdated.
The Requirements
 A review of current processes.
 Improvement of process
capability.
 Consolidation of current position
within the marketplace.
 A platform for further growth.
 Standardisation in order to
ensure all customers receive the
same excellent experience
across all branches.
 Address any knowledge, skills
and experience gaps.
 Staff involvement, ownership
and skills transfer in order to
develop a user friendly process
model, processes and checklists
that are consistent across all
functions.
“We’re
breaking at
the seams.”
The Continuous Improvement Specialists

3. Opportunities
 Current processes were created
10 years ago in isolation and
then rolled out, with little
ownership and no staff input to
their development.
 Processes were inconsistent
across (and within) branches
making it difficult to train new
employees.
 Processes result in numerous
errors making the Society
borderline compliant.
 Backlogs due to slow, time
consuming processes requiring
reference to multiple
documents.
 Staff understand that
improvement changes are
needed but are concerned about
their busy workload.
 Customers unhappy with
complexity and inconsistency of
existing processes.
The Continuous Improvement Specialists
“Customers are complaining about
an inconsistent service across the
branches and our employees don’t
have standard procedures to
follow.”

4. Solution
The Continuous Improvement Specialists
1. Process Selection
2. Preparation for
Improvement
3. Process Analysis/
Re-design
4. Implementation of
Improvement
 Together we assembled an improvement team consisting of
experienced personnel from key positions within the
Society.
 Determined which key process was causing the most “pain”
– the Savers Process – and targeted this for improvement.
 Collected historical data related to account opening errors
to provide us with a baseline assessment of the current
position.
 Used a range of Continuous Improvement tools to
investigate why the problems were occurring, develop
potential solutions, run a pilot and implement the new
process.

5. Achievements
 A new Standard Operating
Procedure for the process of
opening a new Savers account
was created, including “how to
guides”. Thus enabling more
efficient training for new
members of staff and
consistency of service across
branches.
 A new, streamlined application
form for opening a new Savers
account was created.
 Savers account given a new
degree of flexibility through the
development of an alternative
process for opening an account.
Thus giving customers an option
to better suit their needs and
allow staff to deliver an
improved customer experience.
 Reduction in number of errors
on all accounts checked from an
average of >50% to 15% with
continued improvement, which
reduced the risk of compliance
breaches.
 New, updated and agreed
processes relating to four
different types of Savers account
amendment were developed.
The Continuous Improvement Specialists
10
20
30
40
50
60
PERCENTAGE
ERRORS
The Number of Errors on Accounts
Before
After

6. TQMI is a training and management consultancy specialising in Continuous Improvement. We help organisations
achieve excellence through consulting, coaching and training. Our extensive experience covers all Continuous
Improvement tools and approaches. We have worked with some of the country’s leading organisations to help
them outperform, improve processes, engage staff, delight customers and maximise results.
Established in 1987 we have trained thousands of people at all levels and in all sectors. If you would like to
discuss your needs, please, do not hesitate to contact us.
The Continuous Improvement Specialists
www.tqmi.co.uk
t: +44 (0)1928 734266
TQMI Ltd, Charter House,
63 Main Street, Frodsham,
Cheshire, WA6 7DF Consulting | Training | Improvement | Operational Excellence