Let’s talk about coding with Ruan

UK | September

National Coding Week: Hear from our Analysts

As part of our National Coding Week series, we hear from colleague Ruan, Senior Analyst in Performance Insight and Analytics. Here, he talks about his work with coding and his top tips for anyone wanting to learn more. 

Tell us a little bit about your role at Vanquis.
I am a senior customer analyst working in the Performance Insights and Analytics team in our Operations department. Our key focus is to help drive sustainable process and productivity workflow efficiencies across the Operation. This gives us a pretty wide scope that spans anything from pure analytical support to more direct customer involvement.

How do you use coding in your role at Vanquis?
As mentioned, our team spans a large remit so we get to use a variety of platforms and IDEs across the bank. Currently I spent most of my time on the new SAS Viya platform in SAS Studio or on SQL creating stored procedures for daily running processes. Below is a list of the software we use most of the time:

Excel and VBA: We support a large number of front-line tools that supplement our current CRM system. These tools literally take an account number as input and brings back a whole lot of information tailor for the specific account to guide our front-line team in having a meaningful and customer centric conversation.

SAS: We use SAS for a range of analytical support, deep diving into things like OPS processes and producing variance reports and presentations for Team Leader and OPS Managers to help improve efficiency and reduce cost.

SQL: Our team also manages a large number of daily running processes such as NextBestAction, a process where we promote the 3 next best actions to a customer over the phone using the most current data we have for that customer. This is all done in SQL and automated to run every morning, gathering data from across the business, aggregating it into a single view and shifting it into our CRM system.

Python: Being able to do a bit of Python, which is by no means hard given the amount of resources on Google, I have also been able to produce some analytics and proof of concepts around how customers rate us on sites like TrustPilot and a complaints classification model that uses NLP and predictive analytics to triage complaints into specific categories.

What led you into a job in coding?
I’ve always enjoyed using computers from playing counter strike 1.5, World of Warcraft, cheating on Age of Empires to fiddling with Excel during my time in the academics. However, I think it was during my time completing a research masters degree where I actually become more interested in the intersection of programming and data for predictions and generalisations.

What’s the most rewarding part of your job?
For me the most rewarding part is being able to directly see the impact our team has on our front-line colleagues in the contact centre. Whether it’s a tool that helps reduce call time and get the right information to the customer or if its improving a process from a data-led approach, it’s all tangible trackable outcomes that inevitable lead to a better customer journey.

What was the hardest part about learning?
From an industry perspective coming from the academics, the hardest part for me was getting to grips with all the finance abbreviations. I had a previous manager who would could possibly talk full sentences using only abbreviations but thankfully you learn these over time to such an extend that you forget the actual word.

Are there any tools or resources you would recommend?
I would recommend using the online learning website EDx. It has some top notch courses from some of the world’s leading Unis, that are really good quality. I took some time off between my career change and focussed on completing coding courses end-to-end with course certificates. This really helped shaped my thoughts and knowledge that I use every day in job.

Top tips?
Google is your friend… no seriously! I always have Google open on my second screen and whenever I have an idea or I am stuck with some code not producing what it should I always turn to Google and it will eventually help you solve it. Sometime not as quickly as you would like but it will help you solve it.

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