Newsletter
Multichannel integration – a presence in all channels
Today, banks have many faces: local branches, online banking, call centres and self-service terminals. To attract new customers while retaining current ones, financial services providers need to synchronise all of these different channels and develop a coherent multichannel strategy.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that direct customer contact in local branches – the traditional cornerstone of banking – will become obsolete. Not at all. It’s more the case that customers make use of the many channels now offered by banks in addition to their current behaviour, typically to find out about products and decide whether to buy them.
However, integrating different channels with one another into a strategically coordinated whole is only expedient if banks truly understand the needs of their customers. Banks can gain feedback and find out more in this area through newsletters, contact forms and other methods. This information can then be analysed and segmented. To be in a position to sell customers the right products and services, banks have to clearly understand their customers’ behaviour. This is also of benefit to the banks: satisfied customers are central to good business development, and synchronising channels creates synergies and saves costs.
Banks that decide to take a multichannel approach should also bear two things in mind – consistency, and that each channel integrated into the system is fully up to date. For instance, online statements should display debits that have only just been made. This strategy is important to help the bank present customers with a uniform image across all channels and offer them convenience, good value and time-saving ways to make transactions.
The key to success for the financial industry is to innovate by modernising, while keeping a constant eye on the status quo. Multichannel concepts develop over time, so banks need to monitor them constantly so they can react quickly to new developments. On the one hand, banks need to react flexibly to changes in customer behaviour and continually update their marketing mix. On the other, they need to access new distribution channels and integrate these into the multichannel concept. This is where social media is playing an increasingly important role as an innovative communication and sales channel.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that direct customer contact in local branches – the traditional cornerstone of banking – will become obsolete. Not at all. It’s more the case that customers make use of the many channels now offered by banks in addition to their current behaviour, typically to find out about products and decide whether to buy them.
However, integrating different channels with one another into a strategically coordinated whole is only expedient if banks truly understand the needs of their customers. Banks can gain feedback and find out more in this area through newsletters, contact forms and other methods. This information can then be analysed and segmented. To be in a position to sell customers the right products and services, banks have to clearly understand their customers’ behaviour. This is also of benefit to the banks: satisfied customers are central to good business development, and synchronising channels creates synergies and saves costs.
Banks that decide to take a multichannel approach should also bear two things in mind – consistency, and that each channel integrated into the system is fully up to date. For instance, online statements should display debits that have only just been made. This strategy is important to help the bank present customers with a uniform image across all channels and offer them convenience, good value and time-saving ways to make transactions.
The key to success for the financial industry is to innovate by modernising, while keeping a constant eye on the status quo. Multichannel concepts develop over time, so banks need to monitor them constantly so they can react quickly to new developments. On the one hand, banks need to react flexibly to changes in customer behaviour and continually update their marketing mix. On the other, they need to access new distribution channels and integrate these into the multichannel concept. This is where social media is playing an increasingly important role as an innovative communication and sales channel.
© GFT AG