I have always believed the key to success in retail financial services is maintaining customer focus, properly understanding customer needs and delivering a consistent 'customer experience'. We are constantly looking for new ways to improve our customer service and this has given rise to some major initiatives during the year. We have been keen to pilot different ways of CIS working alongside our co-operative colleagues and CIS now has a strong physical presence in new-look retail premises in Belfast and Manchester. In the latter, we have brought together life insurance & investments, general insurance, banking and travel services under one roof. This partnership between CIS, The Co-operative Bank and the Co-operative Group's Travelcare is a prime example of how we can build on our relationships within the Co-operative Group to create unique service offerings for our customers.
During the year, we also continued to make improvements to our call centre operations, increasing both the speed at which we respond to customer calls and the quality of customers' service experience. As part of the development of CFS, we also began to integrate CIS' call centres with those of The Co-operative Bank, resulting in a greater range of service and advice now being available to all CFS customers.
Unlike many of our insurance industry competitors, we continue to serve our customers in their homes and places of work, through our large team of financial advisers. This remains a channel that is particularly valued by our customers, and especially so for those wanting to make provision for their life insurance, savings and retirement. These customer relationships with CIS' financial advisers are proving invaluable as we begin to widen our offer to include many products from The Co-operative Bank.
Our focus on personal service is one of the main reasons we have won several high profile consumer awards this year. We were particularly proud to be recognised as 'Best Car Insurance Provider', and as runner-up in the 'Best Home Insurance Provider' category, at the 2003 Guardian/Observer Consumer Finance Awards.
