This is part four in a series on Connected for Experiences Banks and Credit Unions. Be sure to check out parts one, two, and three.
Data drives value throughout the customer journey, from lead identification to lead scoring and conversion. When data is captured in the right spots at the right point in the process, and pre-populated with other tools to drive adoption, both sales and marketing teams add more value to customer retention strategies.
Sales and marketing supporting each other is always the goal of any business. But with a platform like Salesforce to spark collaboration, increase visibility across teams, and provide a single source of truth — that goal becomes more attainable.
From an engagement standpoint, once you start setting the right foundation for managing leads, customers, and opportunities, it’s all about creating the right programs to bridge the marketing automation with the physical interactions.
With the right expertise and human experiences added to the conversation, your team can engage and educate on new and needed solutions — especially important in a virtual world, where you’re not going to have as many in person interactions.
When we think about quality leads and referrals, we know that a tailored digital approach should be woven throughout our strategy to attract and retain banking customers in a B2C world.
How you can attract (and retain!) new B2C banking customers
The business-to-consumer approach is less about making lists of accounts to go after and more about education. How do we focus on brand awareness and that first interaction to make sure we’re making the right first impression? Every interaction point is a chance to learn more about the people behind the accounts.
Establish quality relationships
You only have one shot to make a great first impression. You must be thoughtful about every touchpoint and the desired outcome. Ask yourself:
What are your customers’ moments of truth?
Are you confident you are making the right first impression, delivering value to your clients?
Are you enabling your associates to build relationships and deliver value?
What can you help them solve now? What can you help them work toward in the near future? How can you facilitate their long-term goals?
If you notice, none of the above questions are strictly tied to money or financial matters. Money is just a tool that people use to achieve their desired results, whether that’s their dream home or sending their kids to college. A trusted banker is there to help customers along, streamlining the process and removing friction at any opportunity. That’s right, we’re back to talking about people, processes, and technology.
A quality relationship starts with people. So it is important that you view your customers as such. When onboarding, collect information about who they are:
Single, married, divorced, widowed — needs vary at different parts of a person’s life.
Homeowners or renters — will they be needing mortgages down the line, how can you help them transition phases in their lives?
Children or none — Empty nesters have different needs than new parents. New parents’ needs differ from individuals without children.
Making contact in a digital-first world
When it comes to attracting and retaining B2C banking customers, we want to make sure we’re routing folks to the right team, at the right time, with the right solution.
When the customer comes to you
A potential new member is interested in opening a savings account. They shop around online to find what is best for them. They will more than likely choose to go with the best rate, but also whoever makes it easiest on them.
When that applicant submits a lead or an inquiry form, response speed is as critical as response content. Even if it is just an automated confirmation of application or inquiry receipt, with a promise of a follow-up call, speed builds trust. Solidify that trust by reaching out and show that you care about their business and they’re important to you.
That’s when a prospect comes to you. But how do you create a genuine experience when reaching out to potential or existing customers?
By understanding their needs and reaching out with the right information at the right time, and with the right channel.
Marketing to the right people at the right time
So how do we manage the customers we do know, and identify the people we don’t know — and how do we start to bring that picture together, to understand the true universe of opportunity around our customers and our potential customers? Salesforce enables us to see the whole story throughout the customer life cycle.
From a lead standpoint, you have known and unknown prospects and customers who may or may not have shown interest in opportunities. How do you engage them in a way that successfully converts them to new products and services?
When you reach out to the customer
Say you want to market certain mortgage offerings to current customers. If you just send out mailers and blanket emails to everybody on your list, sure, you may get some interest, but you won’t know to reach out or continue to nurture the interest of those who don’t act.
With Salesforce’s Marketing Automation capabilities, you can build out nurture campaigns and easily see who looks at your email, how many times they open the email, who clicks on the call-to-action (CTA), and who might have started an online application but later abandoned the cart.
You can then look up that customer’s product suite and see that they don’t have a mortgage with you. You don’t know if they have one somewhere else, because your data doesn’t show that. But what you can see:
Engagement: they opened and engaged the email
Balances: they actively use their checking, savings, and credit card accounts
Customer Satisfaction: positive reviews based on recent surveys and net promoter scores, no open complaints or cases
With this scenario, you have two options.
You could reach out and ask some questions and try to engage that way.
You could look at some of the web analytics, showing engagement where, while he opened the email about mortgage, he’s spending a lot of time on the firm’s HELOC page.
Seeing that they likely have a mortgage elsewhere, you still have insight into their interests outside of mortgage, and customize the next messaging they receive, or connect your customer with an MLO officer.
And if marketing hasn’t thought through all of those potential next steps or ways to monitor engaged members and what they might be doing — how can you inform the front lines around current customers and propensity to buy? Or alert them of buying signs or opportunities to engage and share relevant information that could help them?
This is why it is important to understand how customers and members are using their accounts.
Understand primary accounts usage
No one likes a dormant account. The end goal for every bank or credit union is to be the primary account holder for their customers and members. You want to be the place that people go to for life’s moments — big and small. From mortgages to monthly saving transfers, from daily debit card swipes to CD laddering, your business does better when your customers stay active.
So in building out your base, it’s important to ask yourself:
What do our best clients look like?
How do our best clients interact with us?
How do we find new customers that “look” like or whose habits align with our best customers?
How can we remove friction and make it easier for customers to transition to our firm?
Your best customers should already have a solid, established relationship with you. You know how to treat them based on their preferences or life milestones, tailoring product recommendations to their financial journey rather than marketing the same account types across the board.
Especially common in a lot of community banks and credit unions, half of your customers might see you as their primary bank, but the other half might have one or two savings accounts with you and the rest at larger institutions, because you have a better rate than the big bank. The right tool can help manage new and current relationships, or analyze your portfolio overall to identify opportunities for relationship deepening.
Know your audience (personas and portfolio)
Consumer preferences have been shifting and recent events have caused a drastic increase in digital adoption. This puts tremendous pressure on organizations to become digital-focused — keeping in mind that digital does not mean sending more emails. It’s a holistic change in strategy that captures customers where they are.
Smaller financial institutions can build relationships to give customers a more tailored and personalized in-person experience than a bigger bank will give them — the challenge comes in translating that to desktop, mobile, and social media exchanges and interpreting the new data that digital interactions allow — all the while providing comparable banking tools to those of bigger lenders. Easy, right?
It can be. With the right tools on your side.
Step one: consolidate. Get all your data imported into your CRM so you have a 360-degree view of your customers to drive more satisfactory, fully integrated experiences.
Step two: analyze. Your CRM can help you run reports and audit for dormant accounts and define and measure successful accounts based on product mix, type of service use, and frequency of engagement.
Step three: build. Based on your findings, you can start to build out client portfolios and personas, which will make it easier to market products and services to the right demographic of current clients and increase your rate of retention. The same goes for acquiring new opportunities. When you know how your targeted personas work (and understand their primary account usage) it becomes easier to attract copycat accounts.
With a properly integrated onboarding process, making the switch from one bank to another becomes easier, eliminating friction for the end user (your new customer!). You can do this by:
Understanding what’s going to drive the numbers for the organization
Building the tools to drive the activities that you want to actually get those results
Having the right team and strategy around the why and the what you’re doing
Tying it all back together with personalization and data insights
The result? A new, engaged customer or member who is equipped with the right tools and technology to self-serve their banking needs — with a team of experts ready to help them as needed.
Step one: consolidate. Get all your data imported into your CRM so you have a 360-degree view of your customers to drive more satisfactory, fully integrated experiences.
Step three: build. Based on your findings, you can start to build out client portfolios and personas, which will make it easier to market products and services to the right demographic of current clients and increase your rate of retention. The same goes for acquiring new opportunities. When you know how your targeted personas work (and understand their primary account usage) it becomes easier to attract copycat accounts.
