6 Customer Wishes That Banks Fulfill Thanks to Data Analytics and Enrichment
By: Jannika Anne Otte
Tags: Digital Banking, Updates, Fintech, Customer Experience, Data Driven Banking

A few years ago, the banking world was still in relative order. Today, not much is left of bank branches or interest rates. There is an increasing number of regulations, FinTechs and GAFA are poaching customers and even in-branch advisors struggle with customers who come perfectly informed to a consultation appointment.

But is that really the problem? Banks continue to enjoy customer trust and a surprising degree of loyalty. In the long run, however, such loyalty will have to be earned. And this is where the real challenge lies: there is a decisive lack of customer focus. After all, many banks today are still trapped in the old pattern of thinking when it comes to monetizing products. The real focus should be on customers’ problems and how to solve them. Seldom have expectations of customer-centric solutions been higher than they are today, even in the financial sector. Read how banks are using data analytics and data enrichment to ensure radical customer focus and fulfill very concrete, highly relevant customer wishes.

Customer Wish Number One: Save Time and Money

What is part and parcel of bank managers’ jobs is a cumbersome chore for most bank customers. From the customer’s perspective, the perfect financial management consists of finances that manage and optimize themselves. It is not quite that easy, yet banks can support their customers enormously with simple yet practical solutions for their financial management.

Data-driven solutions help customers to optimize their financial management

Data analysis and data enrichment provide the basis for user-friendly solutions. AI-driven financial assistants fulfill the customer’s desire for a clear, intuitive presentation of their finances. Professionally analyzed and refined data allows for relevant, personalized financial tips to be fed into the system, making it easy for bank customers to optimize their finances. Digital offerings such as account aggregation provide customers with a holistic overview of all accounts and finances, thus saving time and reducing stress levels.

Customer Wish Number Two: Have Finances Under Control

For business customers, financial management is central to business success and yet is usually far removed from their own core competencies. As a result, financial management that is both comprehensive and intuitive is vital for entrepreneurs to survive. Banks have a crucial role to play as a financial manager and can use data on several levels to optimize financial management.

Data analysis and data enrichment facilitate the overview of finances

With personalized and automated insights, banks give business customers better control over current financial figures. Data analysis and machine learning supply information that allows for improved liquidity planning. Integrated into the familiar user interface, bank customers can use data-driven enhancements in e-banking, for example, to create cash flow analyses directly online. Based on these analyses, banks can suggest actionable tips and customized products to its business customers. This way, banks become real business partners for companies and find the right solutions for optimal and sustainable financial management together with their customers.

Customer Wish Number Three: Only Receive Helpful Offers

“Adequate profiling and personalization are becoming increasingly important for successfully addressing and serving customers”, says Bruno Rauch, Head of Customer Analytics at Raiffeisen Switzerland. In the form of personalized content and financial products suitable for everyday use, banks can offer just that. Relevant banking offerings generate specific added value for customers along with an excellent customer experience.

Thanks to data analysis, bank advisors also get to the core of what is actually important for individual customers and generate real added value instead of meeting a customer for a consultation even though they’ve already researched everything worth mentioning.

Data analytics and enrichment enable tailor-made, well-timed offers

Even if bank advisors do not work on Saturdays, data-driven financial advice today should adapt to the customer’s daily routine. This way, some of the advice with personalized offers can already take place in the financial management tool. Important tips and suitable product recommendations are displayed directly in e-banking. Tips and insights optimize financial management and point to additional offers if there is interest.

This all happens when the customer has time for it, e.g. on Saturdays. Provided the wishes and data protection of your customers remain in the foreground, this leads to a perfectly personalized and convenient customer experience.

Customer Wish Number Four: Banking When and Where I Need It

For years, the financial sector has been saying that financial institutions must do no more and no less than reinvent themselves. However, banking itself must also fit into a seamlessly connected world, especially that of young bank customers. Nevertheless, convenient, perfectly timed products and services are not a question of age. Everyday banking, whenever and wherever the customer needs it, is a universal customer wish and therefore cannot be neglected by any bank.

Data analysis and data enrichment serve as the basis for lifestyle-integrated banking

For successful, everyday banking, banks need to know their different customers and their typical customer journey. What are the needs and duties of the bank’s different customer bases? The question of when, where and which banking offer best suits the customer’s everyday life is answered by the analysis of enriched customer data. By integrating suitable, convenient banking solutions into their own interface, banks effectively accompany their customers in their everyday lives and daily financial management.

Data-driven banking is a win-win — for banks and customers. Learn how banks achieve scalability and differentiation with data analytics and enrichment.

Customer Wish Number Five: Manage Finances Via Preferred Channel

All roads lead to Rome? This should apply to today’s banks when it comes to channels their customers use. The roads, i.e. channels and devices that customers use for banking, have increased steadily since the introduction of e-banking. If banks open up the customer interfaces and lead them to it on a secure path, they succeed in inspiring customers and addressing them at eye level.

Seamless cross-channel and mobile banking with data analytics and enrichment

Leveraging the customer’s channels is an important step in reaching out to customers. Successful banks stand out from the crowd by offering a truly seamless customer journey — across all channels. Dr. Pascal Leuenberger, Head of Customer Data & Analytics at St. Galler Kantonalbank, is convinced that hybrid banks can differentiate themselves from new digital banks by offering freedom of choice and ensuring that all channels and customer journeys are seamless.

To enable this consistent user experience, banks need to know and understand their customers well. Using real-time data and data analytics, banks build deep customer profiles and learn everything they need to create a seamless user journey. This makes cross-channel a strong differentiating factor for banks.

Customer Wish Number Six: Sustainability and Meaningful Banking

People forget what you said, people forget what you did, but people never forget what you made them feel! Many banks want to offer their customers something new, but have you ever thought about making your customers feel good? With the help of data analytics and enrichment, banks will be able to provide their customers with products, tips and solutions that match their philosophy of life.

Provide sustainable financial management with data analytics and enrichment

This works as banks use data analysis to find out where their customers’ interests and values lie. Do they donate to a charitable organization? Do they wear clothes from sustainable textile manufacturers? Do they go shopping in shops that don’t use packaging? Using transaction data, banks can find out which customers are interested in sustainable banking and social or sustainable financial products. Based on this information, they can make personalized customer offers and support bank customers in their desire to shape their lives in a more sustainable and meaningful way.

All interviews and expert tips for even greater customer focus available for free download in the study ‘View on Customer Data in Swiss Retail Banks’ by the Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen.