Investec

Investec is a specialist bank and asset manager that offers financial products and services to individuals, businesses and intermediaries. They currently have assets under management worth over £166 billion and employ 10,000+ people worldwide.

We successfully launched our mortgage advice service to Investec’s UK staff, in November 2017. We introduced the service with 30-minute one-to-one appointments hosted by our advisers, in pre-bookable ‘surgery’ days held in the Investec London office. Each ‘surgery’ runs from 8am to 6pm, offering 20 appointments.

We also extended the service to include out of surgery date appointments, which can be pre-booked for a time and date to suit the employee. These ad-hoc meetings are delivered either as face to face meetings at a location to suit the client or as an Online Video meeting – via our own custom-built Video Portal.

I cannot recommend Charles Cameron & Associates highly enough. The service they provide is first class. Since our launch every mortgage surgery session has been oversubscribed, our staff have found the offering to be outstanding and engagement has been exceptional. Providing staff benefits and services over and above the usual is key to keeping engagement and morale high and I feel the offering from Charles Cameron provides this in abundance.

Employee Engagement Results

In the 18 months following launch, we received over 320 appointment bookings.

We have assisted a further 140+ Investec staff members in out of surgery appointments.

These 460+ enquiries, have resulted in us submitting over 85 mortgage applications for Investec staff – saving them money (by offering our fee-free broker service as well as ensuring they are advised on the suitable mortgage product for their circumstances), stress (by explaining the process and managing the mortgage application for them) and time (we collate all supporting paperwork, submit the application to the lender and oversee the mortgage process to chase through to completion, updating the client along the way).

I found the meeting very useful and a good use of time. The advisor helped me to understand what is within my reach and illustrated how cheap monthly payments could potentially be. He was professional, knowledgeable and also was honest about his experience in terms of pros and cons of different schemes, which I appreciated. The meeting gave me a sense of focus and direction. I also think it’s amazing that the free advice is extended to my friends and family!

Summary

A well-planned Internal promotion campaign has proved integral to the successful launch of our services at Investec. The support and commitment of our Partners at Investec, in facilitating promotion of our services to staff, has played a key role in making our service such a successful employee benefit. By using posters in communal areas, maximising intranet listings, hosting promotional events and sending monthly emails out to all staff, the employee engagement level at Investec has soared. The result is that most surgery appointments are fully booked each month.

Following a restaurant promotion in February 2019, in which we were the sole provider promoting our services over a lunchtime, we received 40 meeting bookings. This resulted in the addition of an extra full day of surgery appointments that month.

Since 2018, 100% of those Investec staff who completed our service questionnaires, upon receiving their mortgage offer, said that they would recommend our service. 88% rated the overall experience as ‘Excellent’, with the remaining 12% rating the service ‘Very Good’.

I was very happy with my appointment with Richard. He gave me all the information I needed, so it was very useful. I felt like I gained a full understanding of the possibilities available to a first-time buyer. It was also great to be able to do it in half an hour without needing to leave the office as it made fitting it in simpler.