CTT Group’s Software Innovation Process: Develop, Test & Implement

When launching any new product or service, the main factor in determining its success is always the same: is there a need? The curse of the innovator is to assume every new idea is going to be a winner. No matter how great an idea seems, it will fall at the first hurdle if it doesn’t solve a problem or fulfil a need for the customer.

At CTT Group, we know this. The group was born from listening to the needs of our clients, who wanted to receive professional financial and estate planning advice under one roof. We delivered, and 20 years on, CTT is celebrating two decades of industry-leading success, thanks to our client-focused innovations and software solutions.

“I don’t think you can be successful in today’s era unless the client is at the forefront of everything you do,” asserts CTT Director, Clive Ponder. “One of the reasons for our success is that both Bob [Massey fellow CTT Director] and myself understand clients, we know what clients want. Also, we understand advisers well having spent much of our time in their shoes.”

CTT Solutions

CTT Group may have filled a gap in the consumer market with its unique blend of financial and estate planning advice. Our drive to innovate and improve client services hasn’t stopped there. Making life easier for professionals within the industry has led us to develop a wide range of ground-breaking software solutions, inspired by the everyday problems faced by our professional advisers.

In 2015, we launched Legacy, our innovative will-writing software programme. Legacy combines legal document drafting with a CRM platform to smooth tricky processes and reduce time-consuming admin for our professional advisers, so they’re free to focus on providing the best possible service for their clients.

“It does all the things advisers don’t want to do,” says Clive. “I don’t want to go back and send an email or an invoice. I don’t want to go home and send a report out. So, all those things, the bits we don’t like, we just put in the software.”

But Legacy was only the beginning. True to our ethos of development and improvement, the platform has continued to evolve over the last eight years in response to client demand and feedback.

“It had to grow, and a lot of the things Legacy does now maybe aren’t what it initially set out to do,” says Director, Bob Massey, “but they’re all things that have become necessary for our advisors and it’s been a great success.”

“I didn’t know we were going to develop it, then we thought ‘we’ll do a bit of this, and we’ll do a bit of that’, then all of a sudden, we’re in full-blown software development!” adds Clive. “That’s probably where I spend most of my life now, but I understand what advisers want.”

Recent developments

One of Legacy’s most recent updates is its new Messaging feature, which allows users to store, access, and share important conversations and client information in one convenient place, making for a speedier and more efficient workflow when processing client orders.

“The way that Legacy works, users input client details and it produces documents, but if you’re looking for information around that process within your communications, you have to check through multiple emails, telephone conversations, and online chats. It can be quite frustrating searching all those different areas to find what you need,” explains Mickey Nagra, CTT’s Systems and Software Manager and the man behind Legacy’s development.

“The idea behind the messaging feature was to solve this issue by creating a software file where users can get all their correspondence in one location. We’ve taken the good parts of email and added many improvements,” he says.

Testing and feedback

The process of developing CTT’s innovative digital solutions is as client-focused as the products themselves. Continual communication with our end users is key to devising and fine-tuning our successful software.

We conduct thorough testing of all new digital products and updates with a team of advisers, to ensure they meet with (or exceed!) client expectation in terms of both functionality and usability.

Prior to the recent release of Legacy’s Messaging feature, multiple advisers and groups spent several months using it in everyday situations. This allowed us to gain valuable, real-life user insights on the convenience and accessibility of features such as searching correspondence history within threads, so our IT development team could make the necessary adjustments and improvements.

In addition to advisor testing and in line with Legacy’s existing software, which has been successfully penetration-tested, all new software and updates are also independently tested to ensure they’re secure prior to launch.

Continuous improvement

All our new software programmes and updates go through several rounds of testing, feedback, and improvement before the final version is released to our wider adviser community.

But the quest for perfection doesn’t end there! As with all CTT offerings, we welcome and encourage feedback from our professional advisers, so we can continue to ensure all our products and services meet their ever-changing needs – and those of their clients.

“With all we’ve achieved with our software solutions, it would be easy for us to rest on our laurels – but that isn’t the nature of CTT!” says Clive. ”We’re committed to coming up with new ideas and developing new technologies to take the industry and our client services to the next level. And we’ll continue to do just that.”

Find out more about CTT’s 20 years of innovation here.

This article was submitted to be published by CTT Group as part of their advertising agreement with Today’s Wills and Probate. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Wills and Probate.