FEB 28, 2013 @ 11:26 AM 11,023
When Banks Use CRM Technology, Customer Service Improves
The halcyon days of big banks with big, multi-year IT projects and loyal-to-a-fault customers are gone. Post financial crisis, a much tougher, leaner, and competitive banking environment has emerged, with more mature and sophisticated customers. In today’s new normal, banks not only have to meet stringent compliance requirements, but they also need to provide a more seamless customer experience and meaningful interactions to retain existing customers and increase wallet share. Ultimately, banks need tools that help them drive more profitable customer relationships in this hyper-competitive world.
But to do that, banks need a holistic view of customers across all channels. They need to understand their customers from all angles and be able to deliver more personalized products and services. Imagine, for instance, if when serving a customer, you could instantly know his or her risk profile, which of your colleagues that customer has spoken with or worked with at the bank, and the specific banking products that customer already owns. Maybe all of this information even feeds a marketing profile, which prompts you to offer the customer a tailored promotion, such as a credit card. Now we’re talking not just about speed-of-service , but also about customer satisfaction and retention, all with the goal of growing wallet share.
While these concepts may seem straightforward, implementing such a change is anything but. Technology can help aggregate customer data and automate key processes but at the end of the day it all starts with adoption. Simply put, bank staff and managers want tools that work the way they do and that are compatible with tools they already use in their daily work environment.
We think one way to banks can achieve this is through a CRM solution that is familiar and flexible. With a good solution, bank representatives should be able to leverage the powerful capabilities of CRM through tools and devices they already use every day, like Microsoft MSFT -0.54% Outlook or a mobile phone. They should be able to view CRM data in CRM and then slice and dice data in their favorite spreadsheet program—and have any changes made automatically reflected in the CRM solution. Likewise, CRM data should be accessible to approved users through real-time communications tools like Lync or via the document management capabilities of SharePoint to foster increased collaboration or streamline offers. The ability to use CRM in a familiar interface with other everyday tools is key to truly unleashing the power CRM.
That is exactly what MKB Bank did by using Microsoft Dynamics CRM. They were able to use the powerful yet familiar capabilities to reduce branch service times by 25%, decease customer churn by 5% and increase the profit of the most valuable customer segment by 20%.
As important as customer profitability is, compliance is emerging as another top concern for banks. And, in some cases, meeting compliance requirements can actually mean undermining the very productivity that drives the business. To meet the myriad compliance requirements, banks need solutions that are flexible and provide multiple delivery options (cloud, on premise, and hybrid).
To more fully enable improved customer profitability and successful compliance, a good CRM system should also include robust process automation capabilities; for example, a workflow that streamlines the customer onboarding process or automatically transfers calls of preferred customers to more senior staff. Sun National Bank did exactly that, using Microsoft Dynamics CRM robust workflow capabilities to increase cross-selling rates by 20%, reduce time to approve loans by 80%, and reduce time to market for new products by 67%.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/microsoftdynamics/2013/02/28/banking-driving-more-profitable-customer-relationships-by-using-crm/#55779e792c43
