The industry was also warned that continuing to focus on price alone could lead to a “horrible place”.
FirstHomeCoach CEO and co-founder Ben Leonard (pictured) told the Building Societies Association annual conference he was disappointed by the regulator’s approach to overseeing the market.
“The sad thing is that the focus of the regulation scrutiny has been on price, it’s the only thing they can see as measuring a competitive market,” Leonard said.
“As an industry we need to push back and we tried to push back [to the FCA] and say ‘no, customer experience is as important if not more so than price’.
“If we can create the tools for measuring it then we need to look at it alongside price, otherwise we’re headed to a horrible place,” he added.
Failure to show customers we care
Eligible CEO and co-founder Rameez Zafar issued a challenge to the market to prove that there was more to it than just price.
And he warned that customers choosing to use aggregators would indicate a failure in that mission.
“It’s your job to demonstrate your value,” he said.
“People do not just go to the cheapest. If that were the case, balance sheet alone would dictate this market.
“You have customers, that are happy where they are. It’s your job to find ways to keep them happy.
“If it becomes a pure price proposition – that is because we failed to show our customers we care about them.”
