The lender said that all leads generated for Key through a number of partners would be “independently certified” by Contact State.
The marketing platform will offer real-time feedback and individual performance reports, which will give the lender “unrivalled oversight into the lead generation process”.
Key Group said that as part of its preparation for Consumer Duty it was “keen to review its lead generation processes and undertake further work”. The work would focus on ensuring there was “clear customer consent for all leads”.
The lender said that it would work with Contact State to review its marketing partnerships to make sure customers have a “genuine interest in the products and services” and the customer have a “well informed and compliant customer” prior to seeing an adviser.
Contact State will develop enrichment tools to guide consumers, which will provide “greater surety and transparency” into lead generation.
Thomas Brett, head of mortgages and lending at Contact State, said: “While lead generation is vital to financial services markets such as equity release, forward thinking organisations such as Key are focused on how they source the highest quality leads while offering the best possible customer journey and protections.
“Utilising the tools and technologies provided by Contact State will allow them to not only gain a full and reliable picture of these key indicators but also ensure that they can fully verify and trust the leads generated by partners.”
He added: “We are therefore delighted to be working with Key Group as they work hard to stay at the forefront of the market by improving the customer journey, bringing down their acquisition costs and helping more clients.”
Chris Bibby, chief marketing officer at Key Group, said: “At Key Group, our marketing and lead generation activity is focused on helping customers to better understand their options, so that when they start the journey into exploring equity release, they are fully engaged and keen to understand more.
“Working with Contact State is a huge step forward as it provides real transparency into the customer journey and confidence around customer consent.”
He continued: “This is something that we believe will become more common place under the new Consumer Duty regime, but as market leaders we want to encourage improvements in the way the lead generation firms and their clients approach this market, which will benefit the customers we all serve.”
