Connecting to Customers

Supermarkets, airlines and mobile phone operators all use customer insight and needs/behaviour segmentation to deliver the right experience and offers to their customers to ensure repeat business. Financial organisations, on the other hand, have a wealth of data about their customers but don't turn it to their advantage to provide a supportive service to their customers.

We know that many customers have had a financially tough time over recent time, so will customers have their heads turned by a loving bank, such as the potential new entrant into the UK market place Metrobank? And what will this loving look like?

All financial organisations have the opportunity to design a customer experience for your target customers, it isn't as complex as you'd think. And if you are baffled about Customer Experience read our definitive guide.

Fundamentally though financial organisations need to stop being the critical parent and become the trusted friend, and we all know that once the trust and love is there then conversations about your other products and services are so much easier to introduce. Download our Point of View on how wealth management firms in particular can re-invent their customer experience.

Jump on my grave why don't you?

When a family member passes away, the last thing grieving relatives need when dealing with the estate of the deceased is poor service from the bank. Yet a recent investigation into the bereavement processes of UK financial institutions confirms that this is precisely what many customers are getting. When as many as 40% of bereavements cases result in poor service, the problem is clearly widespread. Not every bank underperforms but those that do well are those that put customer service at the heart of processes and performance. To read more on our Point of View on how organisations should deal with bereavement click here.

What Customers Really Want

The latest cross party report The Future Banking Commission (download pdf) took its input from leading experts and proposed changes across banking structure, regulation, culture and corporate governance. An interesting feature of the research was the incorporation of the voice of the customer through focus group and web based inputs - so what do customers really want in the brave new world?

"Customers want banks to stop selling complicated financial products - and go back to putting customers first with an emphasis on service"

• Improved personalisation and tailoring of services to needs
• Helpful, courteous, knowledgeable, skilled staff
• Greater ownership when it comes to dealing with any issue or complaint

A strong conclusion, but the challenge isn't whether good service can be delivered (it can and we all have personal examples), but whether it can be consistently delivered at each customer interaction. Such consistency calls for a transformational change where the emphasis moves from the front line to the whole of the organisation - its culture, people, processes and technology.

The need to transform service will be increase through regulation and new entrants - so why wait to give customers what they really want? Find out more about transformational change (download pdf)