Capability: Marketing Technology & Architecture

For many banks and building societies, legacy systems are a barrier for real-time, personalised customer engagement. Migrating experience platforms to a scalable, cloud-based platform, coupled with well-engineered decisioning, will enable banks and building societies to establish trust with consumers and subsequently maintain it. 

The need for robust and reliable customer data 

Banks and building societies are bound by financial services regulations to know the identity of their customers. Proper customer identification seeks to prevent criminal behaviour such as fraud, money laundering, or tax evasion. It is also a requirement for credit checks. 

Having well-managed customer data enables lenders to identify the next best action for the customer, and create a customer strategy and journey tailored to each individual customer. 

Inbound and outbound digital channels should be the ideal place to deliver these messages. But the use of digital technology is hampered by unfit processes and operating models that are combined with unscalable technology and batch processing.  

With the right efforts to unlock the wealth of data held, the promise of real-time personalised messages that cut through the noise is very attainable for lenders. 

Covid-19: a catalyst of change 

The financial services sector responded quickly and earnestly to the challenges created by Covid-19. Payment holidays were offered, and staff were quickly relocated to home working setups to continue providing a good service. 

The catalyst of change we all lived with created new levels of trust and empathy. This needs to be maintained by showing customers that the financial institutions really do care about them as individuals, especially in the current climate.

Mass mailings that push irrelevant products or services will erode that relationship. It shows a lack of care for the customer and a view of them as being a source of revenue and profit. 

Making technology change last 

To move forward, financial services marketers need to set a vision for the type of relationship they want to have with their customers.  

This vision will determine the way that data is used, it will be at the heart of all campaigns and communications, it will alter working processes so that the organisation becomes more empathetic. 

Through a clear and uniting vision, marketing technology will really be able to prove its value. Not just in delivering a better campaign, but by shaping the very experience and interaction an individual has with a brand. It will be about two-way interaction.  

For useful input from over 200 financial services brands, 1,500 marketing leaders in the financial services industry and 5,000 financial services consumers, on how you should be evolving your customer marketing strategy to meet the needs of a changing consumer, download this recent report from CACI and Braze.  

Check out the previous parts of this blog series below: 

Blog 1 – How the banking and financial services sector can lean into a changing market

Blog 2 – Creating human banking experiences through data-led marketing

Blog 3 – Three ways to stand out in a crowded insurance market

With new guidance in the FCA’s Consumer Duty directive, the financial services industry is being asked to get to know their customer better and meet their diverse needs. In a recent report produced by Braze & CACI, providing insight for financial services brands, it was found that 42% of EMEA consumers only use one financial services brand – so how can you retain their loyalty, trust and keep them engaged? 

1. Technology Innovation

The general insurance market has always been challenged with engagement, as the frequency of communication with its policy holders is low and concentrated at the point of policy inception, claim or renewal.  

However, building trust is still crucial in this market. 

Every insurer is now looking for new ways to harness technology for growth and competitive advantage. The use of AI and innovative tools is becoming more prevalent in the underwriting, claims and CRM process.  

Harnessing your customer data through modern decisioning tools, and leveraging third-party demographic data to build a more holistic understanding of who your customer is, enables you to interject hyper personalised communications throughout the life of the policy, via the most appropriate channels, and actively give policy holders transparency over potential changes in premium. 

2. Building Trust  

Whilst insurance may be seen as a “necessary purchase”, the payments aren’t usually greeted with good sentiment or the feeling of value for money. 

However, the data and insights that much of this new technology generates creates the opportunity to engage policy holders more during the life of their policy.  

For example, in car insurance, the use of telematics data could be used to talk to customers regularly about how they can improve their driving whilst reducing the cost at their next renewal. It’s well understood that people feel a sense of dread when a renewal comes around, fearing a policy price increase without a clear reason. As an insurer, why not reduce this surprise and help your customers maintain or reduce their premium? 

If the data used to run the underwriting model changes, meaning that the car insurance policy may go up at renewal, it is better to let the customer know this early and explain why this has happened. This would increase trust and loyalty, reducing the likelihood that they might go to an aggregator when the renewal is due.  

Even better, utilise predictive analytics to warn customers early of changes, enabling them to make changes in behaviour to help keep premiums down. 

3. Understand your competition 

The insurance market is made up of large general insurers through to niche specialists. Whilst brand reputation has a role to play, the heavy use of aggregators to seek out favourable deals is commonplace.  

The opportunity is there for the more established brands to innovate and use their capability to invest in and truly leverage marketing technology and data to create a more trustworthy experience. For niche players, they can utilise their positioning to clearly communicate the benefits of their USP to customers. 

With restrictions on the use of incentives for new consumers, all insurers need to consider other important elements of their offering and communicate this throughout the experience. 

Throughout this blog series for the financial service industry, we break down the opportunities for marketers to build trust, loyalty and a superior customer experience with data and technology. Continue reading at the links below: 

Blog 1 – How the banking and financial services sector can lean into a changing market

Blog 2 – Creating human banking experiences through data-led marketing

Report – Banking on the Customer Journey: 2022 Financial Services Insights

Our recent report, created in partnership with Braze, found that only 53% of financial services brands use advanced techniques like event-based and attribute-based personalisation when it comes to customer communications. 

Using modern customer engagement technology will help financial services brands humanise the experience with their customers – as personalising each interaction using sophisticated decisioning algorithms will make the individual feel acknowledged. Real-time customer MarTech can manage two-way dialogue with customers, engaging them with the right content at the right time. 

Great experiences start from the first contact

As the market grows ever more competitive and it becomes easier than ever to switch providers, creating the right first impression for your customers is essential.  

It’s often thought that successful customer onboarding requires the customer to share a lot of data, but with the right customer strategy, marketing technology and third-party demographic data you can create an onboarding process that’s right for your customer without asking for more than your customer is willing to provide. Registration processes should be simple, not prohibitive to engagement, and show clear reasons for data collection. Consider neo-banks such as Plum who gamify their onboarding journey and make it simple to become a customer. 

Collecting marketing consent is an often-neglected part of the sign-up process, with a series of check boxes tucked in at the end just before the terms and conditions acceptance. Improved consent processes are geared towards signing up for specific engaging content or benefits. 

Education and transparency

Even though people are visiting branches less, it is still possible to create real trust through educating customers to support their decision making via your digital channels. 

Many progressive banking and building society brands are now using interaction and behavioural data to point their customers to educational posts or feature tutorials. Brands can therefore help their customers to meet their individual goals, whether it’s to stay on budget, boost their credit scores, save for a new home, or other major life purchases. 

Teaching customers to make the most of the digital tools available to them, and explaining how to achieve their financial goals, will demonstrate care and support. Additionally, being connected with the customer’s long-term ambitions means that bank and consumer are together for the same reason. 

Humanising the experience

With Covid-19 accelerating the use of digital channels, the online experience needs to build trust by clearly acting in the customer’s best interests, like an in-branch customer service representative would. 

Humanising the experience using empathy is key to this. Creating warmth and understanding around life events, in the same way a customer service representative would, is a powerful way to build that bond with your customer.  

It’s critical that the customer journey promotes the value your brand brings by using every interaction, no matter the channel, to reinforce how each individual customer can financially better themselves. 

Throughout this blog series for the financial service industry, we are breaking down the opportunities for marketers to create a personalised customer experience, and build brand loyalty through central decisioning engines, marketing attribution models, data modelling, machine learning and AI-driven recommendations. Continue reading at the links below: 

Blog 1 – How the banking and financial services sector can lean into a changing market

Blog 3 – Three ways to stand out in a crowded insurance market

For recent insights on how your customers feel about the experience they receive from their financial services providers, and for guidance on how you can better understand and meet shifting customer expectations, download our recent report – Banking on the Customer Journey. 

The evidence is clear, Covid-19 accelerated the pace of consumers’ changing behaviours.

Our analysis on consumer attitudes towards returning to branches highlighted a 32% reduction in bank branch visits post-covid, with even the most resistant to channel shift turning to apps and websites to manage their finances.

This is against a backdrop of other changes in the UK’s financial services sector that are impacting marketer’s abilities to connect with customers and prospects.

Retaining your savvy savers

Rising interest rates mean that people are becoming incentivised to both start saving again, and to switch savings accounts again, with savvy savers searching for the best deals.

Our recent consumer insights have found that the younger demographic are still expecting to save in the next 12 months. And it is to be expected that your competitors will increase their efforts to attract your savers to their products. You need to be ready to retain them!

Buoyant lending with a shift to the suburbs

Across the UK we saw a shift from the cities to the suburbs, driven by the opportunity to work from home more regularly. A reduced commute and a chance for more space was an opportunity many felt could not be missed.

Coupled with the government provocation of the housing policy, using changes to the stamp duty tax threshold, there has been an incredibly active homebuyer market.

However, recent economic factors have driven up the interest rates available on new mortgages and to those coming to the end of their fixed deals. Consumers are therefore incentivised more than ever to find the best available deal. This becomes a potential flash point for marketers who need to develop trust with customers so that the retention battle can be won.

Insurers need to rethink incentives

New legislation from the FCA means that insurers must be willing to offer the same incentive to new and renewing customers. Past use of aggressive incentives to win new customers’ needs to adapt to regulatory challenges.

Like the other macro conditions, this requires marketers to engage in longer-term marketing journeys with potential consumers, to win them and retain them with value driven propositions.

The need to communicate with the individual

Whichever way you cut it, there’s a lot of change to contend with for the financial services marketer.

From CACI’s perspective, we see there being winners and losers in the market across banking, lending and insurance.

The winners will be those who utilise data and technology to serve customers as individuals. To maintain engaged relationships based on trust and demonstrate how the brand is taking care of the financial interests of the individual.

Throughout our new blog series for the financial service industry (starting with this blog), we will break down the opportunities for marketers to address these challenges through central decisioning engines, marketing attribution models, data modelling, machine learning and AI-driven recommendations. Continue reading at the links below: 

Blog 2 – Creating human banking experiences through data-led marketing

Blog 3 – Three ways to stand out in a crowded insurance market

For insights on consumer attitudes towards their financial services provider’s marketing and communications, download this report, created by Braze in partnership with CACI. With input from over 200 financial services brands, 1,500 marketing leaders in the financial services industry and 5,000 financial services consumers, the report uncovers a surprising disconnect between what banks think and how customers feel. It also provides guidance for brands in the financial services industry to better understand and meet shifting customer expectations.