Ten Steps to Onboarding Success

Later today, I am presenting at the Oregon Bankers Association 105th Anniversary Convention at Sunriver Resort on the topic, Stemming Attrition and Building Relationships Through Effective Onboarding.

In addition to sharing recent statistics from J.D. Power and Associates around the positive impact of increased attention early in a new relationship and the positive impact of using multiple communication channels from case studies across the banking industry, I will be sharing the ten key steps to onboarding success that I have seen over the past five years.


These ten steps are:

1. Acquire the right customers: The most important component of a successful onboarding program is to acquire customers that have a greater liklihood of future value based on modeling and geographic targeting.
2. Communicate early and often: The sooner you can build dialogue with the customer and the more often you can connect in the first 90 days, the more successful you will be in retaining and building relationships.
3. Integrate across multiple channels: Reaching out to the new customer using phone, direct mail, email and personal 1:1 communication will greatly improve the success of an onboarding program. We have seen lifts of 25-50% when multiple channels are used.
4. Build in learning from day one: An onboarding program should not run on auto pilot. The competitive environment, customer behaviors and transaction trends change all the time. Your onboarding program also needs to adjust on a dynamic basis.
5. Engagement is key: Cross-selling the new customer should not begin until after you encourage engagement with the new account. This can include direct deposit, online banking and bill payment, autosave, credit utilization, debit/credit card utilization, etc.
6. Build a cadence of communication: A successful onboarding program uses a sequence of communication to improve the customer experience by helping the customer understand their new account, get to know the bank brand and eventually build trust and a stronger relationship.
7. Develop personalized offers: Once the customer has demonstrated a satisfactory level of engagement with their new account, offers targeted to the specific needs of the customer should be communicated.
8. Use a test and learn mentality: Testing should always be done with an onboarding program to determine the right offers, timing, channels and cadence for each customer segment.
9. Measure results: Results should be measured consistently against a control group. Common metrics include changes in attrition, engagement, cross-selling, balances and satisfaction on both a customer and household basis.
10. Provide a single point of responsibility: Since most banks do not have Directors of Cross-Selling or VP of Retention, it is important to assign the onboarding process to a single person who will 'own' the development and impact of the onboarding process. This person will work with segments, product managers and marketing teams to ensure the success of your program.

There has never been a more important time to develop a successful onboarding program. With fee income being attacked by Reg E and net interest margins at historical low levels, it is imperative that financial organizations attract and keep customers with the highest potential lifetime value.

Bank Marketers Should Focus on Metrics That Matter

Early in my career, heading a bank marketing department, I remember the frustration of my department being viewed as a cost center as opposed to a revenue contributor. Part of the problem was that it was easy to see the marketing spend each month as part of the bank's expense reports. I also didn't have the measurement tools at my disposal to provide analysis in many cases.

Jump forward two decades and the tools for marketing measurement are plentiful, but the challenges for measurement have also increased exponentially. In many cases, however, it is not so much the ability to measure as it is that most bankers are not speaking the same language that the CEO and CFO want to hear.

At a time when legislation has dramatically impacted the bottom lines of most banks, CEOs and CFOs are interested in metrics that frame marketing investment and results in terms like revenue, profitability and growth. And more often than not, they want results in terms of incremental improvement over business as usual.

Unfortunately, even when hard numbers are provided (which isn't often enough), the perception of the credibility of the numbers still biases the go/no go decisioning for further investment in marketing initiatives.

This view of success is very well described by Pat LaPointe in his Marketing Measurement Today blog, where he illustrates the relationship between values created against resources consumed, where insights are transformed into action and where the perception of measurement quality (many times viewed as the 'so what's') provides the motivation for future action. Pat used the following equation to illustrate his point.



Instead of going through all of the measurements that should be done, what are some of the ways current metrics should be adjusted in order to become more relevant in today's banking environment and to be of higher value to the CEO, CFO and organization as a whole?

• Measure Marketing Impact Against Corporate Goals: Instead of looking at metrics like awareness, response rates, share of wallet or even sales, change the context of the results delivered to include revenues, lifetime value and net present value. These monetary measurements are much more in alignment with the numbers provided on quarterly and annual reports and can be used to generate a Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI).
• Focus on Sales Effectiveness: In a more complex sales cycle associated with an internal sales force (mortgage lending, small business, commercial, corporate, trust, investment services, etc.), marketing needs to stay engaged beyond simply the lead generation phase. In consumer and retail banking, marketing must focus on the engagement of the newly acquired customer as well as the retention of that household. Instead of just measuring leads generated or sales converted, forecast metrics should be used that provide a look into the future value of the relationship based on the customer's level of engagement and loyalty.
• Communication Touchpoint Attribution: According to Forrester Research, with so many marketing channels currently being used, last-touch methods of allocating results to channels are outdated and could lead to a suboptimal marketing mix. In my travels, channel attribution is the holy grail of marketing measurement, where results are either not tracked or results are tracked and allocated to every communication channel. Bank marketers need better tracking methods that look at the customer decision process while serving multiple channel owners who will debate over response ownership. Otherwise, management will get an incomplete (or inaccurate) view of marketing and channel effectiveness.
• Fight the Tough Battles: Be willing to fight the tough battles that come with siloed organizations. Even when money has been budgeted to support a product or service area, the results of marketing initiatives may indicate the need for discontinuation or reduction in future investment. Another battle may loom with your database or analysis team as you attempt to get timely reporting.

With every dollar spent by a bank being highly scrutinized, it is imperative that bank marketers take a leadership role as a strategic advisor to drive revenue growth and cost reduction. By doing so, marketing budgets will be less at risk and marketing departments can be viewed as a source of future revenues as opposed to being a cost center.

How are you measuring results of your programs using metrics that matter to your CEO and CFO?

How Effective Is Your Bank's Social Media Strategy

Whether it is a company asking you to visit their Facebook page and 'Like' a product or brand or a peer wanting to keep in touch on LinkedIn, people are continually being driven to social networks according to Nielsen's latest report on social media. In this first report of its kind by Nielsen, it was found that social networks and blogs reach nearly 80 percent of active U.S. Internet users, and that social media accounts for 22.5 percent of the time Americans spend online. As expected, Facebook was by far the strongest social media brand.

In addition, it was found that nearly 40% of social media users access content from their mobile phone and that Internet users over age 55 are driving the growth of social networking through their mobile devices. As a result, "there is a need for companies to engage more strategically in the social space than they do currently," according to Radha Subramanyam, senior vice president for media and advertising insights and analytics at Nielsen.

Social Media Demographics, Nielsen Q3 2011 Report on Social Media

With networking continuing to increase, and the need to connect with customers and prospects in the most efficient and effective manner possible, more banks are using social media as part of their overall communications strategy. But, while interacting with customers through social channels can be effective, measuring the effectiveness of your marketing investment is no easy task. In fact, while many of the largest banks in the U.S. and overseas are leveraging many of the primary social networks, their strategies usually involve non-financial initiatives such as sweepstakes, charitable causes, etc. 

For instance, on August 16, Citibank used the front page of the Wall Street Journal to promote its Facebook page. On the Facebook site for Citibank US, visitors were prompted to hit 'Like' to learn how to get special access to Beyonce tickets. According to Jim Bruene from NetBanker there were 36,500 likes by midnight of that day for an increase of around 2,000 fans. Today, the page registers more than 125,000 likes (see below). But what is the return on investment for this strategy?

Citibank US Facebook Page, September 13, 2011

To show how fast what is considered a success in social media changes, we only need to look back to last March when Chase used their Chase Community Giving Facebook page to serve as the foundation for a voting process to allocate $5 million in charitable donations. At the time, this program was considered the industry standard with around 2 million 'likes'. Again, however, there was not a clear linkage between the buzz and revenues.

Chase Bank Community Giving Facebook Page

American Express, on the other hand has built very direct link between their Facebook page and credit card acquisition and engagement with their 'Link. Like. Love.' program. Unlike the Chase strategy described above, the American Express strategy is not limited duration and the program is all about their card product. With 'Link. Like. Love.', followers link their AmEx card using the Facebook platform to receive merchant-funded rewards. As rewards are communicated via Facebook (as opposed to on an online bank statement), the customer can link the offer to their card and are prompted to share the offer on Facebook with others in their network for a word of mouth marketing (WOMM) impact. As of today, AmEx has over 2 million fans with over 100,000 'likes' being generated each month based on a comparison to results on July 26.

American Express 'Link. Like. Love' Facebook Page - September 13, 2011

So how do you build a social media strategy that is effective from a financial perspective? How do you know how much to invest in a strategy and whether the strategy is successful from an ROI perspective? There is a great deal of debate today around 'attribution' and the real value of efforts that may not be directly tied to sales. And until we can do a better job of tying intangible benefits such as traffic, fans, mentions and views to some traditional metric, we should continue to be challenged by the finance departments of banks to provide more accurate measurements.

As shown in the infographic below developed recently by MDG Advertising, the vast majority of current measures used by CMOs are 'intangibles,' which by their very definition should prompt caution when using besides metrics like revenue, average order volume, reduced call volume or sales. And while 72% of CMOs cited that social media helped to close business, there was no direct connection between the investment and the return. 

Finally, even though the infographic indicates which social channels were thought to have the best ROI (Facebook), the majority of respondents didn't know what the return was on their investment or did not think there was an ROI. Obviously measurement and correlation needs to improve for social media to continue to grow as a viable financial institution marketing channel.

Infographic from MDG Advertising, September 2011

As with any marketing strategy, your social media strategy should begin with a clear establishment and understanding of your social media objectives. Look at how your competitors and those outside the industry are establishing goals and make sure that your measurement criteria is fully integrated with your current analytics system. Will your social efforts be to increase sales, improve customer service, generate customer engagement/loyalty, assist with product development or simply increase awareness of your brand? 

Once your objectives are delineated, you need to determine what percentage of your marketing budget should be allocated to your efforts. Be careful. Social media is not 'free'. Not only is there a cost for the internal team that manages the program, but there are usually external agency costs as well. In addition, since most banks don't have the luxury of simply implementing a social media strategy and getting immediate traction, most programs will need to integrate traditional media to promote social media efforts (advertising costs). Finally, there are creative, placement and tracking costs that also should be considered. 

The banking industry is known for moving en masse towards the next 'shiny object'. I would suggest viewing The Financial Brand's 'Reality Check 2.0: Myths and Facts' Webinar to understand some of the 'false reads' you could be getting from industry publications. While social media should definitely be part of every bank's strategy (customers expect a social presence), be cautious of building strategies that do not have a clear metric associated. Until key performance indicators (KPI) are established and agreed upon, bank marketers would be well advised to move conservatively and focus on integrating all communication channels.

Let me know: How are you leveraging social media at your bank? How are you measuring success? I am interesting in any success stories.

10 Resolutions Bank Marketers Can't Ignore in 2012

2011 was year that many bankers, and especially bank marketers would love to forget. Not only was focus diverted by the need to respond to new regulations for the second consecutive year (this time it was the Durbin Amendment), but the image of our entire industry was challenged as foreclosures and bank failures continued to be in the news. 

The biggest impact of all of this noise was that attention was diverted from what should have been accomplished in 2011. As I reviewed my post from last year, Ten Bank Marketer Resolutions for 2011, it is clear that most bank marketers lacked the time/focus to make much progress on any of last year's goals. 

So, in writing this year's Bank Marketer Resolution post, I could have simply posted the same resolutions from last year (similar to what I do with some of my personal resolutions). Instead, I reached out to bank industry leaders from across the globe for their ideas. There was surprising uniformity in their suggestions, and a sense of urgency around the need to achieve much more than last year.

So here are the resolutions bank marketers should not ignore in 2012 according to industry leaders:

1. Validate The Value of Marketing Through Measurement: As highlighted in my recent post 100 Years Later, Marketers Still Have Difficulty Measuring Up, there is still a tremendous gap between what bank marketers implement and what is measured. Not only are there almost 20% of marketers who don't find measurement of results imperative according to recent research by Ifbyphone, but less that 50% of any channel is measured. Dan Marks from First Tennessee says, "Bank marketers should resolve to measure and optimize true marketing ROI – having the courage to seek out the unproductive part of the marketing mix and replace it with other activities that generate real shareholder returns." Serge Milman, CEO of Optirate states, "In 2012, bank marketers should resolve to have a more diligent focus placed on business drivers that can help manage and grow the bank," while Bradley Leimer, vice president of online/mobile strategy at Mechanics Bank said that,  "The number one resolution for bank marketers in 2012 must be to 'put data first,' since the proof of any program resides in the measurement of results." 

Jeffry Pilcher from The Financial Brand added a common sense resolution that is not always followed . . . "stop doing things that don't work." It is clear that if only one resolution can be accomplished in 2012, the measurement of attribution and program results is the most important.

2. Don't Confuse Channel Economy with Channel Effectiveness: One of my resolutions from last year that needs reinforcement is that bank marketers should leverage the measurement mentioned above to ensure that the right channel (and mix of channels) are used for the right customers. While social and digital media seems less expensive, it doesn't work as well on its own as it does when mixed with traditional channels. In fact, recent research discussed on this blog has shown that for financial services, many of the traditional channels are more desired and effective than new media. In addition, many bank customers are not reached at all with phone, email or social media programs. As mentioned above, 2012 should be the year of improved measurement and improved attribution analysis, which will help to answer the questions around which channels should be used.

3. Be Customer-Centric: Ron Shevlin, senior analyst from Aite Group and author of the book and blog Snarketing 2.0 stated in a recent post, “banks need to be perceived as doing what’s right for their customers and not just their own bottom line.” One of the banks I work with stated it best when they said that customer centricity means:

• Know who the customer is and what they want
• Look out for the customer and help them make the right decisions
• Reward the customer for their patronage with tangible and intangible benefits

Saying you're customer-centric is not enough, though. "When claiming your bank is customer-centric, actions speak louder than words," warned Elizabeth Lumley, special projects editor at Finextra. This was especially evident in 2011, when many large banks made fee changes that created an uproar in social media, resulting in reversals of those decisions. To this new phenomenon, Chris Skinner, author of the Financial Services Club Blog suggested, "Bank marketers should resolve to make 2012 the year where good communication and real transparency ensures that we don't get screwed by social media campaigns."

4. Build a Social Media Strategy That Complements Your Overall Marketing Plan: Instead of engaging in social media because other industries are doing so, it is time to treat social media like other channels, with defined goals, strategies and expected ROI outcomes. "While simply having a Facebook page or Twitter account may have been sufficient in the past, customers are expected to utilize these channels to connect with their bank even more in 2012," says Karen Licker, financial consultant and social banker (independent) for J.D. Power and Associates. "Given the public nature of these contacts, bank marketers should have a resolution to be aware of these conversations and direct customer outreach, and be equipped to respond quickly to questions or issues raided via these channels." 

Nicole Sturgill, research director for delivery channels at TowerGroup, suggested that bank marketers should resolve to engaging the front line in social media since many don't realize they are being talked about. Alex Bray, managing consultant at IBM recommended, "Bank marketers should create a clear vision for social media based on a genuine customer value proposition while killing vanity projects that don't add value." Added John Owens "In 2012, bankers will need to understand the role and importance of social media to better serve clients and receive feedback."

5. Leverage Big Data for Better Conversations: There is a lot of discussion in the marketplace about the use of 'big data' to transform customer communication and the customer experience. There are very few places where more customer insight is available than in the financial services industry, where we not only have access to demographic and financial service ownership data, but also transactional insight that gives us a view into financial and purchase behaviors. But big data is nothing new, and should not be overwhelming in an environment where the ability to process data has also grown exponentially.

Unfortunately, as was found by Ron Shevlin from Aite Group earlier this year and in a soon to be published report, bank marketers are still not very comfortable with communicating online or through mobile channels using available insights. This may require new talents and new teams according to Brett King, founder of Movenbank, and author of the best-selling book and blog Bank 2.0. "In 2012, bank marketers should have a resolution to build a team that can create compelling customer journeys in real-time," states King. "Marketing is no longer about 'pushing' messages," continues King. Fred Hagerman, CMO of Firstmark Credit Union adds, "Bank marketers should have a resolution to combine web analytics and database knowledge to drive even more relevant communication."

6. Build Customer Value From Day 1: While there has been a great deal of discussion around the cost of a checking account since the December 9 American Banker article on the subject, there is no disputing the fact that fees alone can't make a relationship profitable. As a result, it is imperative that bank marketers look at customers as valuable assets to the bank that need to be nurtured and grown through increased engagement, relationship expansion and retention. As stated by Matthew Wilcox from Zions Bank, "2012 is a year when all bank marketers should resolve to have multichannel new customer onboarding programs as well as highly targeted relationship growth initiatives. To not have these programs in place would leave valuable money on the table and risk losing potentially valuable relationships."

7. Build Bank Value Daily: The past few years have been difficult for our industry, with the faith and confidence in many leading financial organizations being shaken. In 2012, consumers will look for solid value in products and services with every purchase and decision they make. Those organizations that don't reinforce the value they provide - every day - will be challenged. Dan Marks said that bank marketers should resolve to "refine, renew, and reinforce the bank's key brand distinction across the entire enterprise – everyone should know and exhibit how the bank uniquely serves customers’ needs." Steve Cocheo from the ABA Banking Journal suggested a rather straight forward resolution, "Bank marketers need to accentuate trust and value in the communications they develop and strategies they build." Bank consultant, Lori Philo-Cook seconded this resolution when she recommended, "Bank marketers should resolve to find new ways to communicate with customers in order to rebuild trust and strengthen relationships."

8. Innovate: Plain and simple, 2012 is a year where bank marketers should try new things and support innovation done in other areas of the bank. Bryan Clagett, CMO and investor at software services provider Geezeo put it best with his recommended resolution, "Bank marketers should not be afraid to experiment and think outside the box in 2012." For those organizations where budget, philosophy or other variables may make true innovation challenging, payments pro Scott Loftesness provides a suggestion, "Bank marketers should prepare to be a fast follower, especially in mobile for 2012, unless they have the budget to be an innovator."

9. Focus on Personal and Professional Development: While the skills needed to do effective bank marketing remain pretty much the same (targeting, messaging, measuring, etc.), the channels available have definitely increased. Therefore, bank marketers can no longer rest on their laurels and hope to succeed in the new marketing environment. More than ever, there needs to be a dedication to becoming familiar with the changes in the marketplace from a product and channel perspective. As stated by bank consultant Jeff Marsico, "The goal for bank marketers is to earn a place at their bank's strategic planning table and to be more than just an ad budget." Being aware of the changes in the marketplace can help earn this respect.

For me, I find that following industry leaders on Twitter and subscribing to industry blogs (like mine) are a great way to keep up to speed. Throughout this post, I have provided links to some of the industry pundits who share valuable insights and research on Twitter. Following them will go a long way towards keeping you in the loop. Watching who they follow will further expand your depth and breadth of knowledge. Bob Williams from Harland Clarke put it well in his suggested resolution, "Bank marketers should resolve to listen, discuss, think, read, and write. In short, they should be part of the conversation." Community banker David Gerbino provided a more basic, yet important resolution that, "Bank marketers need to resolve that they will understand finance, financial reports, and know how to calculate product profitability."

10. Don't Be Afraid to Break From The Herd: The banking industry is notorious for having a 'herd mentality', following each other's lead as opposed to thinking independently. In the past, the logic for doing this was usually based around risk aversion. Today, following other bank's can be both risky and can inhibit value creative. Look at the events around the raising of debit card fees by Bank of America, where many large banks followed the strategy of Bank of America only to have to follow the bank again as they rescinded the fee. The same can be said for the jumping into the social media waters without a defined strategy. While almost all banks are doing something in social media, very few can define the value it is bringing to their bank or what the ROI on this investment is.

2012 should be the year of breakout opportunity for those bank marketers who want to embrace the challenges associated with change. It is definitely not 'banking as usual', but is the environment where market leadership is gained and disruption creates new business models and customer segments.

I doubt if any bank marketer will succeed at all of the above resolutions. There may even be better resolutions than the industry experts provided above. If you have one that we missed, let me know. If you think some of the resolutions above are not valid, let me know as well.

I look forward to your comments and to a very exciting 2012.

100 Years Later, Marketers Still Have Difficulty Measuring Up

At the turn of the last century, store merchant John Wanamaker stated, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

Based on just released research from Ifbyphone, those may have been the 'good old days'. The report, 2011 State of Marketing Measurement Report found that, while 82% of CMOs expected every campaign to be measured (what's up with the other 18%), only 29% of the marketers believed they could effectively measure ROI of each channel.

Potentially more troubling was the finding that more than a quarter of marketing assistants did not find the measurement of results important. "It's concerning to hear that many marketers don't understand the importance of measuring the success of their campaigns," stated Irv Shapiro, CEO of Ifbyphone. "We need to determine the root cause of this sentiment, and whether it's a lack of education in best practices, or rather a gap in leadership and mentoring. Businesses can only get better at marketing if they are held accountable for improving upon what didn't work in the past."

From a channel perspective, marketers indicated they could only measure ROI on 47% of email programs and 41% of direct mail programs, with all other channels seeing significantly smaller percentages. This is despite having more tracking technology, greater human skill sets, and more attention to ROI and even though only 6% of marketers surveyed thought email was the most difficult to measure (only 5% found direct mail to be the most difficult to measure).

Part of the problem overall is the use of harder to measure channels such as social media and even traditional channels like television. And while the marketers surveyed believed they had many of the tools needed to measure results and build an ROI argument, the problem may be the challenge of attribution where an integrated multichannel strategy is implemented. The survey found that 71% of marketers believed they had the needed tools to measure the ROI of marketing campaigns.

The tools used to measure marketing campaigns included web analytics (48%), email marketing software analytics (47%), leads from contact forms (38%) and social media monitoring (30%).

In 2012, the key will be to take advantage of the vast amount of data at our fingertips and determine what we want to measure, how we will measure, and most importantly, what insights can be taken away that are actionable. Here are some recommendations that may assist in focusing efforts on seeing results of your programs.

• Develop and leverage a marketing measurement playbook that includes standardized measurement inputs and outputs you will use for your organization. Within this playbook, show how testing will be done and channel attributions will be measured.
• Set an appropriate budget and timeline for the implementation and delivery of analysis. Many of the banks I work with under fund the analysis portion of their programs and do not set specific time lines for the delivery of results.
• Set a standardized ROI formula that all impacted parties agree to. There has been a great deal of dialogue recently on how to establish social media ROI measures. Your team and management at your organization will need to agree to these measures.
• Build a reporting template that will be used for all of your marketing programs. This will help to standardize your reports and build credibility within the organization.
• Continue to look for new outside partners that can assist with your measurement efforts. New tools and processes are coming to market every day, with highly sophisticated process for measuring individual channels and multichannel attribution.
  

Channels will only increase in the future and the use of social media by your customers will have a greater impact on your results than ever before. So, how will your organization do a better job at measuring success (and failure) in 2012? What tools will you leverage and what standards will you set so that you don't embark on new programs without the benefit of analysis from prior programs?

I would love to hear your comments below.

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.

Financial marketers also need to extract more value from internal and external data sources, guiding product development, customer communication, innovation and growth.

First in a Series on Big Data and Banking

In a recent report from Celent entitled, "Customer Analytics in Banking: Why Here, Why Now?", senior analyst, Bob Meara writes that now is 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. While the Celent analyst notes that some institutions are already on the path of using advanced analytics for decisioning and optimization, other organizations have only limited experience (this correlates with several other studies).

The following are the primary reasons why banks need to step up their customer analytics game:

• The New Normal: The banking industry is expected to remain revenue challenged for the foreseeable future as a result of low interest rates, moderate fee revenue, onerous regulation and a less than robust economy. As a result, it will be more important than ever for banks and credit unions to focus on all possible strategies to reduce costs and increase revenues. Some of these strategies, enabled by customer analytics include:
• Improved targeting of customer segments
• Moving from a product focus to a customer focus
• Better management (and measurement) of sales leads across channels
• Inclusion of custom customer incentives/rewards to influence behavior
   
• The Imperative for Customer Centricity: With customer delivery and communication channels expanding, and more customers interacting with their financial provider using online and mobile channels, always-on, real-time sales and service become imperative. Analytics can respond to the migration to digital channels by:
• Improving branch efficiency and effectiveness
• Integrating sales and service tools within a new digital environment
• Helping to drive high value, high touch traffic back to branches
• Technology Advancement: Customer analytic applications are no longer the sole domain of highly skilled specialists. Today's solutions can be accessed and used by marketers and other business users to answer complex inquiries. Improvements include:
• Collapsing of product silos and ability to process increased data sources
• Increased number of specialized vendor solutions and expanded talent
• Cloud-based solutions

For readers interested in an excellent understanding of big data, data analytics, predictive modeling options, and the data analytics process, I suggest purchasing the Celent report here.

Customer Analytic Applications

As the Celent study makes clear, there is no shortage of analytic applications for banks and credit unions. While some are more general in nature, some are highly specific outsourced solutions, supporting a buy vs. build decision. Obviously, with a focus on containing costs, the ability to utilize outsourced solutions is good news.

"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."

According to the Celent report, there are six key well-established business drivers for predictive analytics in financial services. Each of these are important as a bank or credit union builds an analytic strategy for the future.

Source: IBM and Celent

Customer Insight

Of special interest to most financial marketers is the ability to gain a better insight on current customers. While demographics and current product ownership are at the foundation of customer insight, behavioral and attitudinal insights are gaining in importance as channel selection and product use become more differentiated. Sentiment analysis and social media analysis are two additional examples. 

Another predictive analytic model is the FICO score. Scoring models such as FICO analyze consumers’ credit history, loan or credit applications, and other data to assess whether the consumer will make their payments on time in the future.

Business Strategy

The foundation of traditional banking business intelligence (BI), customer analytics are often used for product and channel development as well as economic forecasting, business improvements, risk analysis, and financial modeling.

Customer Experience Management

According to the Celent study, the key to using customer analytics for customer experience management (CEM) is about delivering personalized, contextual interactions that will assist customers with their daily financial needs. In addition, if done correctly, customer analytics in the context of CEM enables the real-time delivery of product or service offerings at the right time. It can also allow for highly sophisticated relationship pricing never before available.

Risk Management

One of the more common uses of 'big data' today is in the area of risk and fraud management. Data mining today has expanded well beyond internal purchase and balance insights to include transaction patterns and even social media interactions that can provide a leading indicator to potential losses or fraud.

This type of integration of structured and unstructured data can also be leveraged for traditional risk management uses such as for pricing decisions. 

Channel Execution

BI tools have helped banks understand channel effectiveness for some time. More recently, analytics capabilities have boosted the usefulness of these tools. Capabilities include providing comprehensive views of channel performance based on both customer behavior and transaction mix. Solutions help banks understand channel profitability and customer satisfaction and tailor retail operating models to improve retail delivery.

As more banks and credit unions work harder at migrating customers to digital channels, analysis of engagement and shifts in channel use become important indicators of satisfaction and re-pricing opportunities.

Marketing

Another traditional use of customer analytics is the ability to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of sales and marketing in financial services. The ability to derive the likelihood of purchase based on available information about individual customers has ushered in a seismic shift in marketing from product centricity to customer centricity. 

Rather than offering products and services based on what the financial institution would like to sell (campaigns), banks and credit unions are now able to make unique, timely, and relevant offers based on available customer insight. Doing this form of analysis across multiple channels allows financial marketers to significantly improve the efficiency of marketing spending and the close rate of sales leads.

For each of the applications shown above, the power is not just in the analytics themselves, but in the ability to do so in real time. With more challenges than ever in banking, analytics is at the center of it all as tweeted by the author of the report recently.

Banks have lots to do: grow sales, reduce costs, add digital engagement. Customer #analytics is central to it all: celent.com/reports/custom…

— Bob Meara (@Mearaman) May 28, 2013

Implementing a Successful Data Analytics Process

The Celent research emphasizes that while there are a growing array of use cases for data analytics, the process is definitely not a 'one and done' proposition. The move from a product/campaign based approach to a customer centric approach is huge and involves many moving parts.

Successful implementations always involve a series of steps and a test and learn process as shown below with a different amount of time and effort applied to each step based on the specific project being undertaken.

According to Bob Meara from Celent, "Most organizations (banks included) get good at specific analytics use cases and broaden their use once parts of the organization gain confidence and prove the business case. Only then is the approach used more broadly and extensively."  He recommended that  banks:

• Start small. Invest a little and wear out the application. See what it can do.
• Experiment – early and often. This requires a willingness to fail (in small and low-risk ways).
• Embrace analytics as a journey, not a destination. Keep learning and keep looking for ways to apply analytics for fun and profit.

In response to a question from me around whether banks should 'boil an ocean' in their analytics endeavors, Meara stated, "Of course, banks should walk before they run. By that, I mean banks should fully leverage in-house transactional data before investing heavily in external sources of information and insight."

He adds, "Social data is particularly compelling, but runs a big risk of being unrepresentative. SAS, for example, does a great job integrating social media data with internal data to arrive at more well informed models and more highly predictive outcomes. Either way, start with the treasure trove of data already onboard."

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'.

Those who are unable or unwilling do so at their own peril.

For readers interested in a thorough data analytics vendor analysis and a number of excellent financial institution customer analytics case studies from around the world, I suggest purchasing the Celent report here.

Additional Resources

Customer Analytics in Retail Banking: Why Here, Why Now? - Celent (May 2013) 

Time To Grow Up: Perspectives on Customer Insight and Analytics in Retail Banking - KPMG (2012)

Tap Into The True Value of Analytics - Infosys (2010)

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