How Tata Capital’s digital head responded to COVID-19
Beginning from the customer service requests to the RBI moratorium related queries, which are handled only on the portal or the app, the requests which erstwhile were handled on the branch level are all getting congregated on the digital platform
Tata Capital’s IT infrastructure is cloud based, which lessened the challenges around activating the BCP plan. The system access and remote login was rolled out in a planned manner. The company had already set up the remote login functionalities for some executives. It only had to be scaled for all the employees.
The work from home facility is likely to continue for the next few weeks and there are necessary process tweaks, which are underway to make WFH more stable and reliable. All the functions have access to the ‘Teams’ collaboration facility. Moreover, the operations team also operates with full access to the resources
As far as the business continuity is concerned, the entire lending value chain is operating in the digital mode – end to end unlike hitherto when certain processes were physical. The overall business volume has definitely reduced but the transactions have moved to the digital mode. “As far as the moratorium part is concerned, we are asking the customers whether they want to opt or not to opt for the payment deferral. The loan management system has to be equipped to reschedule the loans – whether the customer wants to extend the EMI payment, opt-in or opt-out. To generate reschedulement options for the customer,” states Abonty Banerjee, Chief Digital & Marketing Officer, Tata Capital.
Banerjee, being the digital head, has to be on a mission mode, as the customers are using only digital channels to communicate. “Beginning from the service requests to the RBI moratorium related queries, which are handled only on the portal or the app, the requests which erstwhile were handled on the branch level are all getting congregated on the digital platform,” says Banerjee.
The partners and customers were proactively communicated about posting their queries on digital channels, which were always functioning earlier too, but they would be helpful for those who are now not able to visit the branches. “The functions like sales and collections are impacted, however productivity wise, the operations, technology are doing better. They are working as usual,” feels Banerjee.
More digital options for the customers
Tata Capital has witnessed decent traction on the voice channel. Over thirty percent customers are actively using voice. “Additional features have been launched for customer servicing, on the voice medium, which was earlier available only for the sales channel. Tata Capital has also announced the availability of TIA, the company’s VoiceBot, on Amazon’s Alexa through its Echo device Series. By following a simple one-time account linking process on Alexa, customers can access a host of services through voice commands,” informs Banerjee.
Tata Capital’s customers can currently be serviced by logging on to the website, Mobile Apps, TIA , the VoiceBot and now on Alexa as well.
There are dedicated platforms, already operational for various businesses. The online working capital platform which approves loans of upto 2 crore in under 24 hours; a separate digital platform for MSMEs is also registering good numbers. Further, Data and Analytics continue to play an important role at Tata Capital and are used across the lending process including for creation of pre-approved offers and propensity models, marketing decisions, underwriting decisions and to enhance collection efficiencies.
Tata Capital is one of the top ten NBFCs in the country, with a book size of over seventy seven thousand crore.
