How FS firms can rebuild trust and improve customer engagement

Guest blog post by Andrew Hayward, COO, m-hance

When’s the last time you returned to a restaurant after a bad experience or purchased products from a company who provided shoddy customer service? As consumers ourselves we acknowledge that without trust there can be no viable relationship between businesses and their clients.

Speaking at the recent Regulatory Policy Institute’s Annual Competition and Regulation Conference, Christopher Woolard from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) stated: “Probably the biggest single issue is without engaged consumers, firms have all the wrong incentives. Firms that are focused on customer service and good value products can’t win significant market share from incumbents – even those who treat their customers poorly or like cash cows. This leads to a vicious circle where lack of consumer engagement makes other competition problems worse.”

Faced with sluggish growth, uncertainty about the future and greater regulatory compliance, there is a desperate need for financial services organisations to become closer to their customers for the right reasons. To achieve this, firms must excel by:

• Offering relevant, high quality products and services that are compliant with FCA regulations
• Listening to customer feedback and acting on it by demonstrating a clear audit trail
• Placing customers’ needs first to improve the overall experience
• Proactively taking action to address potential issues and points of pain

Leading integrated financial management, document management and CRM solutions  enable financial services companies to audit their customer interactions, maximise sales productivity, improve cash flow and become more competitive in the marketplace through improved customer service and engagement. By securely maintaining quality, up-to-date and accurate data which is instantly accessible, integrated systems enable customers to be automatically kept informed about relevant offers and products whilst ensuring firms do not fall foul of tightening FCA regulations. Automating manual service processes also saves your employees significant amounts of time which can instead be focused on strengthening customer relationships and generating additional revenue in addition to cutting admin costs.

Businesses that persist with spreadsheets and standalone systems will never gain a comprehensive view of financial, sales and marketing data to determine what is and isn’t working in order to make informed decisions about how and when they engage their customers. In contrast, integrated software systems turn real-time data into actionable insight, enabling you to quickly establish what stage your customers are situated in the buying cycle and when is best to contact them with the right offer which is tailored to their needs.

Building trust takes time and effort but can provide considerable benefits in the short and long term. In the financial services sector, where competition is intense, the need to improve customer engagement is even more crucial. With ever increasing expectations, the need to have the right systems in place to effectively understand and allocate appropriate messaging and resources to clients is therefore vital.

Integrated business technologies offer firms the opportunity to really get to know their customers. By providing timely and accurate data, finance and CRM systems significantly improve productivity and help generate sustained future opportunity and revenue streams through better targeting. This leads to increased customer loyalty and a long lasting relationship that benefits both sides, as well as boosting the reputation of the financial services industry at a time when it really needs it.

Further information here.