Customer Analytics Is Key To Growth In Banking
Understanding customers is the foundation to a sustainable competitive advantage in banking. Therefore, financial marketers can no longer wait to embrace the power of advanced analytics to gain insights and evaluate opportunities that will improve cross-selling, up-selling and enhance share of wallet.
It is amazing how some topics continue to stay relevant in banking despite the passage of time. One such topic is the importance of customer analytics in banking. In 2013, I referenced a report from Celent entitled, Customer Analytics in Banking: Why Here, Why Now?, where senior analyst, Bob Meara wrote that it was the time for banks and credit unions to leverage the advances in processing, memory, database design and analytic methods to improve performance and reduce costs.
The following are the primary reasons why banks need to step up their customer analytics game:
- Customer Insight
- Business Strategy
- Customer Experience Management
- Risk Management
- Channel Execution
- Marketing
“Key retail banking priorities – specifically, using self-service channels to drive branch foot traffic, improving branch channel efficiency and effectiveness, and learning how to sell and service through digital channels – all require customer analytics,” says Meara from Celent. “The good news is that there has never been such a variety of specialized customer analytics solutions.”
The reality is that, in the digital banking model of the future, data is a financial institution’s most important asset. Banks and credit unions that are able to combine their internal and external data sources to create value will find themselves well placed to thrive in what some have called ‘Banking 3.0′. There is no question that this banking reality is as true today as it was years ago. The difference is that today’s technology is making the task a bit easier.
