Being laser focused on the customer experience requires strategic use of technology innovations to generate better personalization to boost profits and expand relationships.
Efficient, effective offer management tools bring clear and compelling benefits, by:
- Building better relationships
- Increasing productivity, and
- Reducing risk.
Technology innovations, powered by Artificial Intelligence, are smart investments for strong ROI.
Across the financial services industry, there is strong consensus that a great deal of opportunity exists to increase the efficiency and accuracy of offer management processes, while ensuring all offers are in full compliance with pertinent regulations.
On the road to greater personalization and profits, there are four common challenges in which finserv martech leaders struggle:
- Poor customer service
- Time-to-market lag
- Greater risk
- Lack of visibility and transparency
Words of Wisdom: Leading Global Research and Advisory Firm Weighs
A report released by a leading global research and advisory firm clarified the best practices which banks and financial service institutions can and should consider in ““Chart Your Course To Successful Personalization In Banking: Banks Must Align Strategy And Technology To Succeed With Personalization,” Forrester Research, Inc. (Sept. 29, 2021). It was an honor to have been interviewed for, and have my insights into offer management solutions included in, this comprehensive report. A collaborator by nature, I’m always eager to learn from others, and teach where I can, so it was valuable to see the impressive document incorporate insights from 10 global and national financial institution executives and martech leaders.
In this highly-regulated and complex industry, now more than ever, the best outcomes emerge from productive and impactful partnerships. Together, we’re better able to meet the needs of our customers, landing and expanding relationships, while generating results and revenue. As evidenced in the range of reports, solution briefs, case studies, webinars and articles like these, the Naehas team has been fortunate to have partnered with highly-respected, results-focused, customer-obsessed industry analysts and consultants to deliver innovative, impactful outcomes.
In that spirit, and as a companion to other resources where I’ve identified keys to better customer experience (CX) with better digital experiences (DX), it’s time to spotlight solutions. Blending strategy and technology in more efficient and effective ways than before is the only way to achieve the lofty enterprise-wide goals put forth in today’s competitive offer management arena. Building better relationships and driving revenue is a byproduct of automated full-cycle offer management solutions. Learning and leveraging those solutions is a collaborative win-win.
As most professionals behind the scenes of personalization know, a laser focus on customer value is key to effective personalization.
Follow the Leaders: The Pathway to Better Personalization
There are several key cogs in the wheel of successful offer management, all of which have been reinforced by our team in a range of resources we’ve shared. Not surprisingly, as those in the thick of personalization have seen and shared insights toward better outcomes, the report published by the leading global research and advisory firm reiterates top strategies for success.
Finserv marketers realizing optimal results all share these priorities:
- Define a broad, inclusive, flexible personalization strategy
- Connect interactions, transactions and operations
- Facilitate upstream and downstream compliance
“To become truly customer-experience-led, banks should consider the full breadth of a customer’s experience with their brand and provide perceivable value to individual customers in their moments of need by focusing instead on delivering the “next best experience” (NBX). NBX represents the ability to identify and deliver the right experience to the right customer in real time based on everything you know about the Customer.”
The report observes what our teams have seen our clients struggle with repeatedly:
“Banks lack alignment to follow up on their ambitions, between business and customers’ goals, across different functions, between defined business outcomes and enterprise technology investments, and spanning disparate data silos.” A panel discussion I recently led with partners from Adobe and Capgemini (View the Webinar) focused on this fundamental failing, if you will, that is inherent in the personalization process, no matter the size of the institution. Across the enterprise, different teams and lines of business owners, quite understandably, bring divergent priorities and pressures that need to be reckoned with. The more they come to understand the value of more effective, more efficient offer management solutions that work with and for the entire enterprise, the greater their outcomes. Bridging the gap is a common term consultants and platform providers use when urging finserv martech teams to embrace enterprise-wide thinking and consider enterprise-wide investments. The ROI is immense.
Closing the Gap with Automated, Full-Cycle Solutions
It was along these lines, urging marketers to “close the gap between insights and engagement to deliver customer value” that my contribution to the independent research firm’s report was incorporated, as noted here:
“Personalization in banking requires a detailed understanding of financial industry regulations.
Banks must seek out technology solutions that address concerns about in-house skills, regulation, and banking-specific functionality. For example, vendors such as IntelligenceBank and Naehas add banking compliance to marketing resource management. Rab Govil, founder and CEO of Naehas, adds, ‘Upstream collaboration to create and approve offers with valid product benefits, stipulations, rates, eligibility rules, and disclosures is necessary to successfully automate dynamic personalization downstream.’”
For context, a bit of background. Naehas has purposely-built an offer management platform which provides financial service institutions with unique, automated, rule-driven tools that enable organizations to build and link complex offers to the right audience, in the right channel, every time, with accuracy and efficiency. This solves for the most vexing and complex marketing challenges.
In a highly-regulated market, solutions that help banks and finserv institutions to slash time to market, increase the number of targeted offers, and increase revenue are increasingly being implemented by the most savvy martech leaders. Additional gains are realized through comprehensive audit tools, security access and customer workflows which allow full control, validation and visibility through the complete offer lifecycle. Such solutions provide marketing strategists and lines of business owners, and team members across the enterprise, with near real-time visibility into offer performance. Further, it delivers insights into reasons for the levels of performance for numerous offers being fielded at any given time. This powerful, proven combination is what’s driving finserv martech leaders to see results: building better relationships with their customers, helping them meet their needs, while offering a better customer experience that leads to loyalty, all while remaining fully compliant with regulatory requirements.
Efficient, effective offer management tools bring clear and compelling benefits, by:
- Building better relationships
- Increasing productivity, and
- Reducing risk.
Technology innovations, powered by Artificial Intelligence, are smart investments for strong ROI.
As top-tier banks and financial service institutions look to become more competitive in this complex, highly-regulated industry, my refrain will continue to focus on collaboration. Sharing resources and recommendations, as so well presented in “Chart Your Course To Successful Personalization In Banking: Banks Must Align Strategy And Technology To Succeed With Personalization,” Forrester Research, Inc. (Sept. 29, 2021), is a marketing force multiplier.
The report laid a solid foundation for greater personalization with recommendations throughout the report. It wisely focused on the need to start with customer needs and prioritize customer outcomes, emphasizing that customer needs should drive the alignment of personalization investments. As we collaborate to leverage solutions toward greater customer experiences, automating dynamic personalization, empowered by AI, will continue to emerge as investments yielding strong returns for the customer and the enterprise.
