Processes live in spreadsheets
Every adviser has their own sheet, with their own way of naming the stages. Nobody can say how many cases are stuck, or at what step, and when someone's away, the case is left with no owner.
Sectors
Finance and credit: brand, calculators and platforms that handle the process
Selling trust when nobody enjoys the subject
Credit broking and investment start from a difficult place: whoever's looking rarely does it for fun. They're looking because they want to buy a house, because they're paying too much, or because they've got money sitting idle and don't know what to do with it. They arrive wary, often already badly treated somewhere else, and they're deciding about the largest sum of money in their life. Communication that looks like a bank leaflet puts off exactly the people you wanted to attract.
It's also a sector with rules: there's information that has to be included, promises that can't be made, and registrations that have to be shown. What usually works is the opposite of what you'd expect — the clearer and the more sober, the more credible. And it's a sector where the job doesn't end at the website: a credit process has dozens of steps, several documents and several parties, and almost all of a platform's value is in not letting any of them drop. Alongside it, accountancy and professional services have their own page.
What usually holds processes back
Requests from this sector almost always reach us for one of these reasons.
Documents travel by email
Payslips and bank statements circulating as attachments, forwarded several times over. It's slow, the good version gets lost, and it's the worst possible place for papers like these.
Whoever reaches the website doesn't see what's in it for them
The page explains what credit broking is, when the question whoever landed there actually has is different: how much can I borrow, how much will I pay a month, and what do I do next.
Enquiries don't stand out from one another
Someone comparing rates out of curiosity and someone with a completion date booked arrive through the same channel and land on the same list. The second is urgent and gets treated like the first.
The brand looks like a small bank
Blue, a handshake and a rising graph. It's what everyone does, and in a sector where the decision comes down to trust, looking like everyone else doesn't help at all.
What we usually do in this sector
The scope changes depending on whether it's credit broking, insurance or investment, but these are the jobs asked for most.
Calculators
The sum a person wants to work out before talking to anyone: instalment, amount and term. It's the piece that turns an anonymous visit into an enquiry, because whoever runs the numbers has already said what they need. That was the case with Credimax.
Process platform
Every case with an owner, a stage and a deadline, documents in the right place instead of attachments, and a record of what's already been discussed. It's what stops a case sitting still for two weeks without anyone noticing.
Custom CRM
When off-the-shelf programs don't fit the way the company actually works, a CRM built to the real process — with the stages the company uses and the names the team already calls them.
Brand and trust material
Name, logo, palette and typography that are sober without looking like everyone else's, plus what the client receives: proposal, printed calculation, document folder.
Links to partners and systems
When banks, insurers or partner platforms offer a connection, the process reads and returns data without anyone copying it by hand.
Content that answers before the call
Copy that explains rates, terms and the documents needed, in plain English. It's what makes you appear in the searches of people who are deciding, and it's what lets the first call start halfway through.
Services most requested by credit and investment firms
Each page explains the process, what you get at the end, and the questions asked most often.
- Web applications, for calculators, platforms and CRM;
- Integrations and APIs, to link to partner systems;
- Websites, for the institutional site;
- Branding and naming, for a brand that won't be mistaken for the others;
- UX/UI design, because a calculator is only useful if it's simple to use;
- SEO and SEM, to appear in the searches of people deciding;
- Copywriting, to explain things without sounding like a contract.
Projects in the sector
Credimax is the most complete piece of work we have in this area: website, calculators, custom CRM and integrations. Assets Capital brought together name, brand, website, integrations and print. The rest is in the portfolio.
Common questions from people working in credit
The questions that reach us most often before starting a project in this area.
Can we have a calculator if the conditions change every month?
You can, and it's precisely because they change that the calculator needs to be yours, not a static image. Rates, spreads and terms sit somewhere your team updates without calling us, and the calculator starts using the new figures the moment they're saved. What it gives is always an estimate, with that caveat in view — that's what makes it useful without making it a promise.
Can client documents really live on a platform?
They can, and they fare better than in email, which is where they usually live today. On a platform there's who sees what, a record of who opened what, and a way to delete what's no longer needed — none of that exists in an attachment forwarded three times over. What we need to settle with you at the start is how long each thing is kept and who has access; the rest is building.
Do you also work with accountancy and professional services?
We do, but that work has its own page: see the professional services sector. We kept the two apart because the problems are different — an accountancy practice lives on retainers and long-term relationships, while a credit broker lives on cases with a beginning, a middle and an end. The platforms each one needs look nothing like each other.
Got processes living in spreadsheets?
Tell us how a case runs today, from the first contact to the end, and where it usually gets stuck. You'll get a proposal with scope, phases and price.