In my last post on the , I highlighted how Microsoft Dynamics CRM can aid firms in the area of tracking internal employee referrals, particularly in the Retail Banking arena. Regardless of whether a referral is uncovered by an employee, sent from an existing client, or delivered by an external partner, referrals are the lifeblood of one’s business. Any time one receives a referral, it is easier to develop trust and confidence with the Prospect. As a result, the sales cycle is frequently shorter and sales acquisition costs are typically lower. So today, I wanted to expand upon the topic of referrals and further share how CRM can help financial institutions better track and rate the quality of leads they receive from external partners.
Retail Bank branches and Wealth Management firms often strive to build a strong stable of referral sources in their local communities. For instance, financial advisors and bankers tend to partner up with CPAs, attorneys, estate planners, and insurance agents in their area in order to develop a vast network of referral sources. Usually, the intent of these partnerships is for both sides to send and receive referrals. The banker may send the CPA a lead, such as a business owner that is looking for tax advice; in turn, the CPA will then send the banker a Prospect company looking for better business banking expertise. In all of these cases, it is important to nurture relationships with the key referral sources in order to uncover more opportunities and prevent the sales pipeline from becoming dry. By leveraging CRM as an external partner referral tracking tool, Banks and Financial Advisory firms are able to analyze the main sources of their deals, see which referral sources are contributing most to their profitability, and determine which third-party advisors are also influencing the financial decision-making of their clientele. Top lead sources, most active referral sources by role, top third-party deal influencers, and the leading external advisor referral sources in one’s community can all be captured in CRM via the sample Lead Sourcing Dashboard below.
CRM’s robust referral tracking capabilities also can benefit Institutional Money Managers, Investment Banks, and Private Equity firms. For example, Institutional Consultants can be linked to multiple opportunities, investment funds, and companies. Moreover, these consulting firms and contacts can be rated and segmented based on the quality and profitability of leads they are providing and on their degree of influence on certain accounts and pursuits. As seen in the sample Consultant Performance Snapshot below, CRM real-time Dashboards make it very easy to see who is recommending one’s firm/services and who is not. Based on these insights, financial firms can then identify and target which consultants they need to actively contact and forge deeper relationships with in order to be considered for more deals and mandates going forward.
Having worked with many leading firms in the financial services industry, Customer Effective has tailored enterprise Banking and Capital Markets-focused CRM solutions to help facilitate the tracking of strategic referral sources and account influencers. Please contact [email protected] if you would like to hear more about how we can help you grow your referral sources and improve your overall financial performance. More background information on our custom solutions for the financial services space is also available at: .
Post by: Kevin Wessels, Customer Effective
