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Financial Services Digital Engagement

An opportunity of a lifetime: Banks leveraging CRM data for a personalized experience

11/15/2022

by Annika Neldeberg and Jeremy Miller

Every stage of life brings on a new set of financial goals, obstacles, and needs. When you are young, this looks like a secret hiding spot for your piggy bank where you put all your money from your lemonade stand. When you get into high school, it might be getting your first bank account, car loan, or credit card. Then you grow up and might want to buy a house, so here comes the mortgage. Before you know it, kids’ college funds, retirement funds, and investment accounts start becoming your biggest financial focuses. Each stage of life brings banks a new set of chances to serve a customer and provide a personalized experience. There are few relationships, both on an individual and a business level, that span such important life milestones. Looking at these opportunities through the lens of a bank, it’s an opportunity of a lifetime to capitalize on customer loyalty for generations to come.

Your organization’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system contains data that is rich in insights to provide you with a greater understanding of your customer. Realizing the power and value of your customer’s data can allow you to tailor customer interactions for each life stage.

Banking at an early age

Banks have the chance to serve their customers for life. In fact, recently, this journey is beginning when customers are younger than before. The rate of unbanked teenagers has significantly decreased since 2011. Some companies are on the cutting edge of this realization. Greenlight is a financial technology service that offers debit cards for kids. The opportunity to provide a personalized experience can be driven by the rich information gathered earlier in life. While this is promising, gathering data earlier introduces unique responsibilities on how you govern and handle data specific to minors.

Other companies, like Bank of America, have jumped in headfirst on following customers throughout all life stages. This “Life Banking” approach is an example of how banks can leverage their customer’s insights to create personalized experiences that are tailored to a customer’s journey. Simply having secure data isn’t enough; it’s utilizing it in ways that demonstrate an understanding of your customer’s current and future needs that’s most important to a bank’s ability to serve the customer and secure more financial products.

The opportunity to serve a customer throughout their life is inherently available to banks, but each interaction should thoughtfully be tailored to meet your customer, no matter what life stage they are in. Banks must first understand customer expectations and then leverage CRM data to implement personalization strategies.

A greater understanding of your customer

The longevity of the customer and bank relationship is critical. In fact, it’s very typical for a bank to have a customer stick with them for more than 20 years. Believe it or not, this statistic is not related to just having the lowest fees. Instead, it relates to a different concept: a bank’s greater understanding of their customer. With an enhanced understanding, banks can continually build the trust of their customers and ensure they feel valued and supported through each life stage. It begins with the customer and the unspoken expectations they have.

• Tailored Experiences: Consumers expect personalized customer experiences and product offerings
• Dynamic Categorization: Personalization must go deeper than age, location, and income and should leverage factors such as spending patterns and lifestyle choices
• Tailored Dashboards: Customers need a fully personalized and approachable digital dashboard for their most pertinent financial information
• Mobility: The digital experience must be comparable to, or better than, going into a branch
• Security: Your customer’s data is of utmost importance and protection must be industry-leading

Are you leveraging your CRM to offer the right financial products at the right time?

Building trust with a personalized experience

Personalization is a necessary component of cutting-edge banking. Making sure that your company’s communications and actions are relevant and compatible with your customer’s circumstances is vital. When banks appropriately leverage their CRM data and use a dynamic content model, they can deliver the right content to their clients as they reach certain life milestones. This could mean offering a first home loan product, a college savings account, or a retirement savings product based on your customer’s current situation. Tactics such as relevancy in communications and personalized offerings drastically improve conversion rates and acquisition of new customers.

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Interested in how Sendero can assist your organization with the opportunity of a lifetime to serve your customers? Start by contacting us today.

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