9 Secrets to Building Customer Engagement in Banking

Virtually every bank and credit union has the acquisition of new customers as a top priority for 2014. But generating a new account is only the beginning. To generate near-term profitability and long-term relationships, the new customer must become fully engaged. 

Customer engagement can not be achieved in a day, week or a month. It is the foundation of a relationship that includes trust, dialogue, a steady growth in service ownership and a growth in share of wallet if done correctly. The alternative to focusing on building customer engagement is a relationship that does not meet its full potential or customer attrition.

According to Gallup research entitled, The Financial and Emotional Benefits of Fully Engaged Bank Customers, the tangible benefits of a fully engaged customer that is both attitudinally loyal and emotionally attached to the bank include the following:

• Increased Revenues, Wallet Share and Product Penetration: Customers who are fully engaged bring $402 in additional revenue per year to their primary bank compared with those who are actively disengaged, 10% greater wallet share in deposit balances and 14% greater wallet share in investments. Fully engaged customers also average 1.14 additional product categories with their primary bank than do customers who are 'actively disengaged'.

Source: Gallup (2014)

• Greater Purchase Intent and Consideration: An engaged customer not only holds more accounts at their primary bank, they also look to that same bank when considering future needs. At a time when so much of the shopping process is done online, improving your bank's chances of being in the customer's consideration set is important.

• Becoming a Financial Partner: Less tangible, but no less important, the Gallup research showed that an engaged customer builds a bond with their bank or credit union that every financial institution would covet. According to the research 54 percent of engaged customers strongly agree that their bank helps their financial dreams come true and a similar percentage believe their bank makes their life more enjoyable. Most importantly, 71 percent of engaged customers say they will use their current bank for the rest of their life.

Here are the secrets to setting the foundation for strong customer engagement:

1. Improve Acquisition Targeting

Customer engagement begins before a new customer even opens an account. With today's depth of data and processing capability, it is possible to find new prospects that are similar to the best customers who already have accounts at a financial institution. By building acquisition models that look at product usage, financial behavior and relationship profitability, opening accounts that have limited potential for engagement or growth is reduced.

Beyond demographic, financial behavior and product use modeling, geographic modeling is also important since the strongest potential trade areas are not always clearly defined by branch radius mapping. 

2. Change the Conversation

One of the key elements of building an engaged customer relationship begins with the conversation during the initial account opening process. To build trust, the conversation must focus on making sure the customer believes that you are genuinely interested in getting to know them, are willing to look out for them and that, over time, you will reward them for their business/loyalty.

This early conversation needs to focus more on capturing insight from the customer and discussing the value different products and services will have from the customer perspective as opposed to simply discussing features. The goal is to illustrate to the customer that the products and services being sold will meet their unique financial and non-financial needs. 

Some of the insight that should be collected (beyond the basics) includes:

• Financial objectives
• Primary financial decision maker in the household (it is often the wife)
• Communication channel preference(s) 
• Accounts held elsewhere (balance details are not as important as knowing the category)

Unfortunately, research studies indicate that the majority of branch personnel have difficulty having in-depth conversations with customers around needs and the value of an organization's services. In other words, having a firm grasp of product knowledge is no longer enough. The initial focus should also be on sales quality as opposed to sales quantity. 

Interestingly, some financial institutions have begun utilizing iPads to collect insight directly from the customer. While seeming less personal, an iPad new account questionnaire standardizes the collection process and usually is able to collect far more personal information than the bank or credit union employee is comfortable collecting.

3.  Communicate Early and Often

It is interesting how banks and credit unions set objectives for expanding a customer relationship and engagement and then establish arbitrary rules around communication frequency and cadence. It is not uncommon for a bank to limit the number of 'touches' to one a month or less despite the fact that a new customer has been shown to desire significantly more interaction as part of their new 

relationship.

In fact, research from J.D. Power has found that the optimum number of communication messages during the first 90 day period from both a customer satisfaction and relationship growth perspective is seven 'touches' across various communication channels.

An example of an onboarding engagement communications plan is shown below. The contacts below don't include additional media such as online and mobile banking messaging, ATM messaging, digital retargeting, etc. It is important to remember that at the very least, an engagement communications plan should include a 'thank you' message within the first 5 days of the account opening (from either as new or existing customer).

	Focus	Messages Sent	Email	Mobile
Day 1	Welcome & Activation	Welcome Kit Preapproved Offer	Email Capture	Mobile Capture
Day 2	Thank You		Welcome Email	Welcome Text
Day 5	Utilization	New Account Follow-Up 'Go With' Service Discussion	Alert Notification Sign-Up	Alert Notification Text
Days 7-30	Utilization & Engagement	Branch Phone Check-In Engagement Letter	Engagement Email (Direct Deposit/Online BillPay)	Engagement Text (Direct Deposit)
Days 30-60	Utilization & Engagement	Branch Engagement Call	Day 30 Engagement Email Day 45 Utilization Email	Engagement Text (Mobile Deposit)
Days 60-90	Engagement & Cross-Sell	Call Center Relationship Expansion	Modeled Engagement Service Email	Engagement Text Rewards Offer
Days 90-180	Cross-Sell	Call Center Relationship Expansions	Modeled Service Cross-Sell	Modeled Service Cross-Sell

Top 8 Financial Marketing Resolutions For a Successful 2014

For the past three years, I have published an article on resolutions bank and credit union marketers should make for the upcoming year. While these posts have always been extremely popular and well read, many marketers still have difficulty achieving some of the most important resolutions.

Despite this lack of success by some, I am again providing suggested resolutions for financial marketers since research shows that people who make resolutions are ten times more likely to attain their goals.

When I published my first financial marketing resolution post in 2011(Ten Bank Marketer Resolutions for 2011), the primary emphasis was on replacing lost fee income caused by the Card Act, Reg. E and the Durbin Amendment. Most of the other resolutions addressed ways to either generate new revenues or reduce costs. I did discuss the need to test social media marketing, deliver on the mobile banking promise and reconfigure the branch model, but these were not the highest priorities in 2011.

My resolution post for 2012 (10 Resolutions Bank Marketers Can't Ignore in 2012) enlisted the support of more than 20 global banking industry leaders to help develop suggested strategies for the upcoming year. While the focus of many of the resolutions were similar to the prior year (communication channel mix, customer centricity, social media testing and building share of wallet), discussion expanded to include the importance of leveraging big data and embracing innovation.

As with any list of resolutions, last year's banking industry leader crowdsourcing post (22 Industry Leaders Provide New Years Resolutions for Bank Marketers) included several resolutions from prior years that still presented a challenge, such as enhancing the customer experience, improving measurement of results, integrating the mobile channel and continuing to innovate. The major difference last year was the increasing importance of focus and grabbing the lower hanging fruit due to all of the distractions caused by new regulations and compliance initiatives.

This year, I again collected ideas from some of the most prominent names in the banking industry in the development of my top resolutions for financial marketers. I also researched trends in other industries that are served by my firm, New Control. While some of the suggested resolutions are similar to those in the past, the impact of digital shopping, big data, the mobile channel and a contextual customer experience is evident.

Banks Need To Reassess Cross-Selling Efforts

For decades, cross-selling has been a strategic priority of banks and credit unions since earning more business from current customers is the most efficient way to achieve growth. Despite this focus, a new study indicates that many financial institutions may be far from realizing the full potential of cross-selling.

In fact, according to the study, only 19 percent of retail bank customers owned three or more products in addition to a checking account with their primary bank compared to 49 percent who have three or more products with other financial institutions.

A just released Deloitte report entitled, 'Kicking It Up a Notch: Taking Retail Bank Cross-Selling to the Next Level' supports the view that success in cross-selling targeting may need to move beyond traditional product ownership, satisfaction and tenure parameters to include a behavior segmentation approach that takes into account perceptions based on total account holdings. 

While the Deloitte survey shows that banks have generally achieved long tenure and a high degree of satisfaction with customers, this success has not translated into multiple product relationships. In fact, the study found that there is a positive correlation between the number of products a customer uses and their desire to use multiple institutions.

Source: Deloitte Center for Financial Services

According to the study, customers only turned to their primary financial institution for a savings account on a consistent basis. In fact, while 75 percent of respondents owned credit cards, only 33 percent had one that was issued by their primary bank. Obviously, this could be the result of an inferior offer, poor marketing and/or the absence of a primary bank offered credit card, but it still illustrates a major opportunity gap.

Some of the other 'opportunity gaps' may be caused by poor cross-selling at the time of account initiation, poor customer education on the benefits of relationship consolidation or even beliefs that a primary bank is not the best place to build a specific relationship (wealth management or insurance products).

Source: Deloitte Center for Financial Services

Banking Leaders Discuss 2014 Strategic Planning Priorities

CROWDSOURCING SERIES

As we enter the planning season with a marginally better economy than last year, banks and credit unions are faced with margin compression, high operating expenses, new competitors and channel disruption that challenge even the most efficiently run organizations.

To assist with this year's strategic planning process, I asked some of the foremost global leaders in the banking and credit union industry to provide thoughts on what they believe are the 2014 strategic planning priorities. This blog post is a companion to the post done at the beginning of the year regarding trends expected in 2013.

Understanding that each financial institution and market is different, it was interesting the uniformity of priorities offered to bank and credit union management by the more than 30 industry leaders I interviewed for this post. And while the ability to execute against these strategic priorities may be impacted by size of organization and other dynamics, there was a consensus among those who I spoke with that 2014 may be one of the most important planning cycles ever.

Enhance the Customer Experience

Improving the customer experience was the foundation of almost all of the responses I received around 2014 strategic priorities. Whether we are talking about branch reconfiguration, mobile banking applications, back office operations, etc. banking industry leaders believe an improved customer experience is the key to growth. 

As was said by Mary Beth Sullivan and the team from Capital Performance Group in their May/June Newsletter, "Many banks have a long way to go to get the basics right, so banks and credit unions should focus first on the basics. Once the basics are humming, ask yourselves: What can we do to be sure that our customers are better off banking with us than with our competition? What will make our customers lives better? How can we help them solve specific problems they are dealing with? Answers to these questions will define the experience you seek to create."

Beyond 'the basics', other specific strategic initiatives were recommended by Steven J. Ramirez, CEO of Beyond the Arc. "Developing a proactive complain management process that goes beyond regulatory requirements can drive new customer experience projects", says Ramirez. He also believes financial institutions need to determine how they can be a finger swipe away from providing guidance and support through mobile devices.

Financial industry futurist and blogger Scott Bales believes bankers need to get out of the office and talk to real customers, developing empathy for their problems, behaviors and desires if they want to develop offerings that align with the needs of the market. According to Bales, "The goal is to build experiences, not products".

Sankar Krishnan from Sutherland Global sees customer experience as the 'X factor' across all channels and interactions the customer has with their financial institution. Comparing what banks need to strive for with customer experience leaders Apple, Amazon and Quicken Loans, Krishman believes banks need to excel at aligning people, process and technology. 

Sam Maule from Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting Group believes that recent start-upssuch as Moven and Simple (and perennial cx leader USAA) are the best at visual engagement and customer experience. He quoted one of his banking clients as saying, "I would pay $500K for ONE great user experience designer. FSI's are horrible at this. We have massive data systems, huge BI tools, and more, but none of that means jack for consumers if there isn't an amazing user experience."

Finally, best selling author and acclaimed management advisor Joe Pine believes banks and credit unions must go beyond providing just checking accounts and loans.

Digital Shopping Has Transformed The Bank Purchase Funnel

Historically, customers came into a branch to research financial products prior to purchase. Today, the majority of customers have done significant online research before entering the lobby, transforming the bank and credit union purchase funnel. 

Unfortunately, these digital shoppers get confused as they try to navigate tedious web pages or become unimpressed when they encounter unprepared branch personnel, requiring financial institutions to develop an improved multichannel sales strategy.

When respondents to the Novantas 2012 Multi-Channel Sales Survey were asked to identify their preferred channels for product research, online was cited as the top avenue by 63 percent of respondents with only 13 percent of the respondents stating that the branch was their primary research source. A majority of these same respondents, however, preferred to open an account at a branch, with only 36 percent preferring to open an account online.

The Novantas research found that preferences differed based on the account the customer was researching, with customer using the online channel more when shopping for a new checking account (69%) than for a mortgage (57%) or investment product (55%). Again, the branch channel was not the first choice for initial research.

9 Steps to Improving Bank Cross-Sell Performance

With an increasing need for banks to increase revenues and decrease costs, optimizing every marketing contact has never been more important. In addition to leveraging multiple channels to generate a steady stream of new customers, one of the easiest and most steady sources of new businesses and related revenue is to reach out to current customers for additional business.

With the cost of acquiring new retail, small business or commercial customers being five to ten times the cost of retaining an existing one, and with the average spend of a repeat customer being 50-100% more than a new one, bank marketers need to remember that the most efficient investment of marketing funds is to market to customers that already bank with you.

Here are 9 time-tested, common sense techniques that many bank marketers sometimes forget: 

1. Ask questions: Consultative selling has been discussed the focus of the banking industry for decades. In a nutshell, the process begins by clearly analyzing a customer’s situation before presenting services or products. From the outset, a failure to cross-sell a brand new customer is a failure to develop a consultative relationship and a failure to ask the right questions.
   
   Without these questions (which are close to impossible to ask later), the opportunity to open the right services initially or later in the relationship is made more difficult. In addition, as opposed to going through a long set of questions that make the banker (and customer) feel uncomfortable, the dialogue should be free flowing and natural. Another option is to engage the customer with tools that can be used to complete the profile easily such as a tablet device.
   
   

Using Big Data To Predict Online & Mobile Banking Needs

Investing in online and mobile channels was not intended to simply provide additional channels for customers to access their accounts. The promise of reduced costs, increased cross-sales and enhanced service was the objective for most banks.

The good news is that online and mobile channel adoption is very high, meaning that customers are downloading mobile banking apps to their phones and creating online access points at a high rate. Unfortunately, that’s where the momentum has stopped.

Third in a Series on Big Data in Banking

Instead of migrating more expensive interactions to less costly channels, consumers have actually increased their total interactions. “In talking to all types of banks across the globe, we’re hearing a similar story – customers are signing-up for online and mobile banking, but calls into the call centers are not decreasing at any noticeable rate,” says Ido Ophir, head of products at Personetics. “People are still calling with transaction-related questions and even account-level questions.”  

A recent industry report revealed that more than 30 percent of customer service calls were preceded by an online visit. That’s a large percentage, especially when the vast majority of these questions can easily be answered in the digital self-services channels.

Based on the numbers being reported by large banks, while they have several million signed up for digital banking services, less than 10% are using mobile banking in any real capacity each month. So, while banks have done a great job of signing up consumers for online and mobile banking, customers are not fully leveraging what these self-service channels have to offer. The utilization problem actually goes even further - most customers log in to check balances or look at individual transaction details, but only a very small percent use in-depth or multiple features like funds transfers and check image deposits on a regular basis.

Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System  - Consumers and Mobile Financial Services (March 2013) 

The question is, what’s stopping them?  Is it that:

• They don’t want anything else? . . . Show me the balance and I’m done.
• They can’t find what they’re looking for? . . . They get frustrated and leave.
• The service they want isn’t offered? . . . Only high-level transaction inquiry; no detailed information.
• They aren’t sure what they’re looking for? . . . Expecting better personal guidance.
• They don’t know what to do or where to go? . . . Poor user interface.

Online Banking Key To Satisfaction and Growth at Credit Unions

According to recently released research, credit unions continue to score higher than banks in six key areas that have been found to drive customer satisfaction.

Interestingly, however, while lower rates and fees are still a significant component of a positive member experience, the impact of improvements in the online/mobile channel delivery will have the greatest impact on increased customer satisfaction in the future.

CFI Group, a customer satisfaction technology and analytics firm, in an inaugural study entitled "2013 Credit Union Satisfaction Index," measured six primary drivers of customer satisfaction on a 0-100 point scale and found that credit unions consistently scored high in all categories, with each driver scoring in excess of 80 points. This score was higher than many other industries including retail banking. 

CUSI Satisfaction Driver Scores

Of the six drivers of satisfaction measured, however, the 2013 CUSI found that only four play a significant role in driving member satisfaction and, therefore, should be the focus of the industry. At the top of the list for primary drivers that could impact future satisfaction were "online banking," "branch staff," "branch convenience," and "information/communications." 

The chart below illustrates the contribution of each primary driver towards increasing member satisfaction. The two missing drivers of satisfaction ("rates and fees," and 'products and services") have already 'maxed out' as a driver of additional satisfaction according to the study, thereby limiting any the impact that an improvement in these two drivers would have on future member growth.

Driver Contribution to Increasing Satisfaction

Banking Industry Taking Small Steps With Big Data

As was discussed in the first of my series on Big Data in Banking, the financial services industry has a vast reservoir of data on their customers, but is in the infancy stage of utilizing this data for financial or competitive gain. 

A new study published by the IBM Institute for Business Value confirms that while the majority of financial firms believe data can create a competitive advantage, the scope of data used and the analytic capabilities lag behind other industries.

Second in a series on Big Data and Banking

In a study published by the IBM Institute for Business Value in conjunction with the Said Business School at the University of Oxford entitled, "Analytics: The Real World Use of Big Data in Financial Services," it was found that 71 percent of banking and financial firms globally believe that the use of insight and analytics creates a competitive advantage, compared with 63 percent of cross-industry respondents. This compares with only 36% reporting this advantage in 2010, representing a 97 percent increase in just two years.

Pragmatic Customer-Centric Strategy

Not surprisingly, the IBM research found that most 'big data' strategies being implemented by the financial services industry begin by initially identifying business requirements, then leveraging existing infrastructure, data sources and analytic capabilities before incrementally expanding sources of data, technology and analytic capabilities. This 'slow to go' progression is actually on par with the global cross-industry counterparts reviewed.

Banks and Credit Unions Must Improve Cross-Selling Efforts

Despite the fact that banks and credit unions have talked about the importance of cross-selling for decades, few institutions have a disciplined process to take advantage of cross-selling opportunities that can grow operating revenue from existing customers. 

For those organizations that do have a process in place, studies show that many are not targeting the offers to reflect insights readily available, thereby annoying some of the best customers.

Outside of an improved interest rate spread (which is unlikely in the foreseeable future), banks can only create revenue by adding new customers or by deepening existing relationships. At a time when competition for new customers has never been greater from both traditional and non-traditional players, the only sustainable opportunity is to sell more to the customers a bank or credit union already has.

While the findings differ a bit by study, research shows that U.S. adults own between 8-12 financial products each, with ownership of services increasing with age (until age 54), by channel (online users have more products) and by type or institution (credit unions and smaller banks do better cross-selling).

Forrester: North American Technographics Benchmark Survey, 2009

Forrester: North American Technographics Benchmark Survey, 2009

While the number of products held by a typical household hovers around 10, most customers only hold 2-3 services at any one institution. Only the very best organizations sell more than four services to any one customer (not including 'go with' services such as debit cards). How can banks improve their penetration within their current customer base?

Essential Online Channel Metrics For Financial Marketers

With evolving technologies and platforms, financial marketers need a clear and comprehensive set of metrics to determine the effectiveness of their online channel. 

Instead of drowning in data and not being able to connect the dots in a meaningful way, here are four metrics that rise to the top and provide the clearest picture as to the selling power of a bank or credit union website.

By Melanie Friedrichs, Analyst for Andera, Inc.

In the Wild Wild West atmosphere of the early internet era, companies raced to slap websites online without thinking too hard about what purpose their website should ultimately serve.  Consumer retail companies found their ROI in online shopping, and their websites gradually evolved to draw visitors in and drive them to checkout.  In contrast, financial institutions focused on expanding eServices, until their websites became little more than portals to online banking. 

In the last few years, we’ve seen institutions start to wise up to a second, essential function of the online channel.  As Joe Swatek from ACTON Marketing said, “Your website has an important SALES function.”  Technology has made it possible for financial institutions to acquire new customers and members and grow relationships completely digitally, and like consumer retail websites aim to sell consumer products, financial institution websites should aim to open new deposit accounts and originate loans.  When thinking about the account opening and lending through the online channel, there are four essential metrics that financial institutions should consider:

1)      Conversion Rate

The single most important metric for a financial institution website is its conversion rate, or the percentage of qualified  unique visitors that begin applications for deposit or loan products.

Before the introduction of online account opening and lending, financial institutions focused primarily on making online banking login as easy as possible, and on providing key corporate information.  The rest of the website really didn’t matter that much, so webmasters cluttered pages with news items and product advertisements from different departments.  Over time, most financial institution websites began to resemble ill-managed community bulletin boards.

Improving Bank Onboarding, Cross-Selling and Retention With Personalized Video

At a time when self-service banking models are replacing one-to-one interaction, personalized videos can provide a highly engaging and relevant communication option that can improve engagement, increase sales and reduce churn. 

Combining real-time data with highly customized content, marketers can turn big data insights into differentiated 'wow' experiences.

Online video is coming into its own, no longer being just an add-on component to institution's Web site. Partially due to the explosive growth of tablets, web videos have evolved beyond being used just for education or brand building to become a viable direct marketing messaging and selling tool, deserving of dedicated resources.

Online Content Booming

According to recently released data from comScore, 180 million U.S. Internet users watched almost 36.2 billion online videos in January of 2013. While the majority of these videos were for entertainment purposes, nearly 25 percent were promotional content, helping companies communicate with new and existing customers. In fact, video ads were the fastest growing category of online advertising in 2012, with U.S. spending increasing 46 percent to $2.9 billion.

More and more sophisticated viewers don't want to watch a repurposed 30-second TV spot on their computer, tablet or phone. They want online content that is personalized, compelling and interactive. "People are sitting viewing content online wanting to push a button -- give them a reason to push a button," said Jay Miletsky, CEO of online video network MyPod Studios in an interview with CMO.com. If done right, online video can be both a strong branding opportunity and an effective engagement tool.

A survey by Digitas found that 51 percent of online video viewers in the sought after 18 to 44 year old demographic would look up a new brand or product they saw on an online video, and 58 percent of 18 to 34 year olds who follow brands on social media would watch a video that a brand posted online. In addition, the just released Global Video Index : 2012 Year in Review conducted by video analytics provider Ooyala, found that while viewership differs between devices (desktop, tablet, mobile), the overall amount of viewing doubled in 2012.