Due to increasing accountholder disgust with fee increases, wavering client loyalty, eroding customer or member confidence, increased regulation, and tightened margins, banks and credit unions really have no choice but to enhance their overall banking experience. This premise is shared by the findings from the from J.D. Power and Associates. In the study, over 50,000 retail banking customers were surveyed regarding their experiences with their retail bank in early 2012.
The study found, not surprisingly, that customers are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with new or growing bank fees. The issue of fees, and all the prevalent media attention that it has received, is certainly a motivator for customers to consider switching banks, and could definitely lead to rising attrition, fewer brand evangelists, and even reduced wallet share. However, as previously noted on the , fees ultimately are not the primary reason why customers decide to switch to another bank. While fees can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, many customers considering or actually going through with a bank switch are already dissatisfied with their current bank due to subpar levels of service that they have received over the years.
The research from J.D. Power and Associates echoes this sentiment and goes on to reveal that many banks have been able to offset the growing number of dissatisfied customers, in relation to fees, by improving service levels across all channels with the help of technological advances. In particular, banks are committing more resources to expanding and advancing their mobile, online, and ATM banking channels. However, as banks focus on delivering more cost-effective products and services in a much more convenient manner, they must not devalue the in-person banking experience, be it in the branch or out in the field.
Educated Customers are Happy Customers
The J.D. Power study goes on to point out that banks with a courteous staff which educates its customers are the ones that have had the least resistance from customers on the evolution of the bank fee structure. Being proactive and giving customers various options to avoid fees has been especially successful. For instance, explaining to clients how certain fees will no longer be applicable if they take advantage of multi-product packages will result in a grateful client, who will be less inclined to move assets to another bank or apply for a loan elsewhere.
Banks Have to Maximize Face Time
With customers coming into the branches less and less, branch employees have to maximize any face time they get. Same goes for bankers scheduling appointments outside of the branch with business owners and high net worth families. The more bank sales and service teams know about their customers, the better level of service they can provide, and therefore the less difficult discussions they will encounter on fees. The CRM solution, which is built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, makes all of this a reality. Specifically, Customer Effective: Banking deepens customer knowledge with consolidated 360 degree views.
The Right Data, Right Place, Right Time
Able to integrate with back-end Core processing systems, the centralized Customer Effective: Banking CRM platform allows bankers to be more in tune with current account relationships, past service incidents, fee history, existing product gaps, and future client needs. Furthermore, the Customer Effective: Banking solution conveniently works directly within Outlook and its tracking, segmentation, and follow-up tools empower CSAs, bankrs, loan officers, and branch managers to collect key contact info, behaviors, and preferences at every interaction point. Having such collaborative customer intelligence readily available enables bankers to be more prepared for meetings and more responsive to client inquiries.
Identify Follow-Up Opportunities and Top Tier Clients
Plus, bankers receive the added benefits of becoming quicker on post-call follow-ups and they will find it easier to identify, target, and execute cross-sell and upsell initiatives. Finally, instant queries in CRM can even be done on top-tier clients who have received fees in the last 30 days or who have not been contacted in the last 90 days. By utilizing CRM to stay in touch more frequently with top customers, bankers can significantly reduce the impact of changing fee models and even tighten and grow client relationships.
If you are a Bank looking to offset decreasing client satisfaction with fees and instead increase client retention and revenue streams, please email [email protected] to learn how Customer Effective: Banking and Microsoft Dynamics CRM can help.
Cirrologix also comes up with CRM implementation for banking sectors. this article is having good insights and thanks for sharing.