Announcer: Welcome to this edition of The Point Podcast Series . The Point is a regular publication featuring news and perspectives from Accenture’s financial services industry specialists.
The current credit crisis is putting extraordinary pressure on most financial institutions to reduce costs and boost capital now. But a customer-focused strategy that attracts and retains clients is the only way to become a high-performance bank of the future. A winning strategy includes: the right balance of time, money and talent to understand the customer; innovation across the right channel mix; and the right set of key performance indicators to measure return.
Recently, we spoke with , Customer Relationship Management lead for the Financial Services operating group. John tells us what banks and their customers need to know and understand in this new landscape:
A key point for the banks in the new landscape is that there has been a significant dislocation of the customer fundamentals around needs, attitudes and behaviors as a function of the crisis. And our recent research which suggests that in excess of 40 percent of the customers of the bank are “in play.” That creates an enormous market opportunity.
A key point for the customer, in the new landscape, is to be on the lookout for innovation as banks look to respond to the changes in needs, attitudes and behaviors. There’s going to be tremendous innovation around product, around price, around interaction, and all that should present the customer with exciting new opportunities to get the financial services they need.
Announcer: what immediate action banks should take to thrive in a demand-driven world in which the driver of the new model is the customer. He explains that it’s important to strike the right balance:
Banks need to take action with a mix of offence and defense. It’s important to look at the existing portfolio and understand where the changes in the market have created a risk around customer attrition and take the defensive moves necessary understand to protect that relationship and grow it into the future. On the other hand, the banks should be taking action around playing offense. If the current environment has created a situation where as much as 40 percent of the customer base may be at risk in terms of having new needs, new attitudes or demonstrating new behaviors, there’s a great opportunity for the bank to experiment with different products, different pricing, different ways of interacting with the consumers to take share at this point in the cycle.