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Hailey Shutkowski
Traditional banks are adapting because they must.
With the digitization of the financial services industry and the rise of online-only financial service providers, traditional organizations are under pressure to evolve to stay relevant and offer a great digital experience or risk losing customers.
- "52 percent of millennials said they would switch banks for better mobile or digital capabilities."
- "In 2020 the top business challenge for financial services will be the Customer Digital Experience"
- "As consumers increasingly prefer fintech and omnichannel banking options, financial services organizations have unique opportunities for growth by investing in tech-based products and services" (Bai.org)
One global Deloitte survey of financial services customers gave some great insights on points of improvement for banks who want to encourage the use of their digital channels: “Customers globally are more likely to use online banking more frequently if banks increase security, provide more real-time problem resolution, and allow more regular banking transactions to be completed online."
But here’s where it gets sticky: merging the old world with the new
Despite the proliferation of digital channels, customers still want traditional offline services for some things — and that’s not expected to change. FinServ businesses are going to need to make sure they can continue that offline journey online, and vice versa. This is where identity resolution comes into play.
Identity resolution for financial services
In order to speed up the adoption of self-service digital solutions, banks need a sophisticated method to identify customers across all touchpoints. This will empower them to combine customer data sources and understand which self-service digital solutions are most relevant to each individual — from downloading the app and signing up for various accounts, through to long-term investments. Communicating the right digital solution at the most relevant time will not only increase product uptake but also make customers self-sufficient as they are able to satisfy their banking needs when and where they want to.
What makes a robust identity resolution solution?
Flexibility to use all relevant identifiers, even your own business-specific IDs. Make sure your profiles are not reliant on an identifier that is prone to expiration or deletion, such as cookies.
Ability to select merging moments. You want to be as certain as possible that two profiles are the same person before merging them. Especially when you want to use this data for personalizing communication towards their individual needs. Make sure your selected vendor allows you the flexibility to define merging moments, and definitely ensure this all happens in real time. As soon as an unknown person identifies themself as a known individual, you want to make sure you merge this data with the existing information you have on them. This will enable you to use all of their rich data to personalize their experience in the moment.
A match-rate strategy. Make sure your selected vendor works with you to increase match rates with a robust recognition strategy. This will help you to build your rich first-party data set over time by building accurate, detailed profiles across devices and browsers.
3 Steps to Increasing Self-Serice Uptake
Step 1: Identify customers with online and offline data
First identify individual customers' needs based on all available data, including both offline data (e.g. CRM) and online behavioral data. To do this they need a robust identity management solution to unify data to create rich, individual profiles. This can also help guide them on what type of solutions people are looking for (who is calling the call center or going into a branch and what are the topics, do they know there is an online tool for X topics, are their gaps in online self-service tool offerings.
Step 2: Analyze data to understand which channels are relevant for who
Next, use this data to identify which customers and prospects each digital solution might be useful for, excluding those that are already using these solutions.
Step 3: Communicate on the preferred channel — without spamming
Lastly, communicate with these individuals on their preferred channel at the right time – without spamming them. This involves carefully orchestrating these experiences through each stage of the individual's journey, encourage the use of new and useful online tools to provide a seamless banking experience.
Flexible identity management in banking
This would normally be where the sales pitch comes in. Relay42 offers all of this! (We do) but that doesn't mean our platform is necessarily the right solution for your business, right now. We have a lot of other resources on this topic for you to explore; I'd suggest starting with these for more inspiration.
- Article: Evi Shares 5 Lessons in Data-Driven Marketing for the Finance Industry
- Ebook: How to Build a Connected Customer Journey in Banking
- Hub: Wealth of Value in Customer Data for the Finance Industry
If you would like to talk about your specific situation, you can always get in touch with our team. You are also more than welcome to join our live webinar on 29 September on identity management, where we'll be discussing some of these topics more in depth.
Besides all that, the best advice I have is to assess your current data management situation.
- How is data flowing in and out of your company?
- Where is it stored?
- Who has access?
- What data can be activated, where and how?
- Which self-service channel are you keen to activate, and how are you currently promoting those channels?
- What is the current uptake vs the goal? If there's a large disparity, why do you think that is?
Get other stakeholders involved and have a conversation about your current vs desired scenario, and take it from there. It's a process, but one that will be well worthwhile, for your business and your customers!