Financial Services and Customer Communications

The Financial Services industry has much to becustomer, with the latest in Customer
gained from improving the quality of their businessCommunications Management technology, we can
and customer communications. After all, if youcreate messages that are relevant to that
really analyse your customer relationship what iscustomer. This relevance can be driven by any
likely the most regular touch point between yournumber of factors.
organisation and your customers?Share of Wallet, Percentage of Portfolio are all
That's right, in the majority of cases, it is going tocritical measures to banking and other financial
be the regular documents that you send out toservices organisations. The costs to acquire a
clients - Statements, Policy Documents, Taxcustomer are high. Once acquired, any bank
Statements and promotional materials.should be seeking to maximise the opportunity to
In an earlier post, I mentioned the length of timeextend their relationship to improve the
that people spend reading their statements, likelyprofitability of the individual customer.
it's working on an average of between 1 and 3Thus it is possible to promote targeted messages
minutes. Now, think about how much timeto the customer, messages that the customer is
someone would spend reading your ad in thatlikely to respond to. This is not a catch-all
National Newspaper? What is the cost to serveapproach to advertising, it is specifically about
that ad?building a unique relationship with a customer.
Think a little bit deeper and look at theFor example, life stage can affect the financial
statementing process. You already do it right?products that we as consumers are interested in.
Now look at your statement. What it is tellingWe can promote financial products directly suited
your customer about your company? My guess isto a persons life stage.
that unless you've already done this, not much. ItThe statement is one of the single biggest
probably gives your branch address, a phoneopportunities for you to improve the end
number and not a lot more.customer relationship and to increase the
Now take a look at that statement and thinkprofitability of your customers. Transpromo as
about how effectively that space is used. Whatcan be delivered by Customer Communications
would you pay for that White Space in anManagement technology is a proven approach,
advertising outlet over to the left of the page, orwith examples demonstrating astonishing results
the one between the address and the statementfor clients.
line items?Next time, I'll take a look at some of the
Look at the bill again, just look at the data thatelements of Transpromo as we work towards
you hold on that customer, not only on the billshaping how to best approach establishing a
itself but across the enterprise. Now think. If weproject in your organisation.
can harness that data to better understand the