How to gain a competitive advantage by identifying, attracting, and retaining profitable clients
Customer relationship management (CRM) is one of the most important phrases in the Banking and Financial Services industry (BFSI) – or at least it should be.
In today’s “financial” world these words should be linked with the following phrase: “Gain a competitive advantage by identifying, attracting and retaining profitable clients.”
Financial institutions today are still facing the same challenges they did 15 years ago. Management is still trying to figure out “how do we obtain a complete picture (a 360-degree view) of our customers that is consistent throughout all contact points of the company?”
Why is this challenge always a top priority for the BFSI industry? The answer is that it leads to a better bottom line.
The Banking, Financial Services and Insurance Industries (BFSI) are in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The truth is, the next “Uber” of the financial industry is looming, and you should be ready for it.
Due to the global financial crisis, the BFSI industry has a huge focus on customer relationships and experience. Many companies are faced with reducing costs (whilst scaling up the business), improving efficiencies, and offering flexibility on skilled resources that will enhance performance.
Deloitte reports that the BFSI Industry has been experiencing adverse economic conditions and exceedingly stringent regulatory control, with a resultant increase in the amount of capital required. Enormous pressure to reduce costs while upscaling operations is also evident. Simultaneously, customers are becoming highly demanding and expect services across a range of communication channels.
Leveraging CRM for Unprecedented Customer Visibility
The aim of CRM is to help businesses use technology to gain insight into the behaviour of customers and the subsequent value of those customers.
If it works as planned, a business can: provide better customer service, make call centres more efficient, cross-sell products more effectively, help sales staff close deals faster, simplify marketing and sales processes, discover new customers, and, ultimately, increase customer revenue.
This, however, does not simply happen through the procurement and installation of a CRM system. For CRM to be truly effective, an organisation must first decide what kind of customer information it requires and what it intends to do with that information.
Customer information is a valuable asset of the BFSI community. CRM solutions are vital in helping financial institutions solve the problem of disparate, disconnected systems and product silos. They integrate these disconnected silos and enable companies to create a “single” integrated sales and services platform that provides users with comprehensive customer information and provides customers with access to products and services across all channels.
CRM systems are essential to effective business growth, empowering users with comprehensive client information and tools to help them deliver exceptional service and meet the unfilled needs of their valuable clients.
Financial institutions that are focused on surpassing customer expectations will definitely have an opportunity to increase their share of investable assets or share-of-wallet through the deployment of a CRM solution. The result can be ongoing increases in revenue and profits.
Lastly, the embracement of a CRM initiative will allow financial institutions to differentiate themselves from their peers and position themselves favourably for the inevitable economic recovery.
