| By Jim Bruene on November 17, 2011 9:52 AM | Comments (3) |
Last month, I reported that my "aha moment" at BAI's Retail Delivery was the realization of just how challenging it had become to manage customer messaging across multiple channels and products.
Consider this 9x12 matrix of 108 product/message options a bank could conceivably use to reach a couple about their banking and loans. The whiteboard in the marketing conference room just won't cut it any more as the master scheduling tool.
| Product/ Channel | DDA | Card #1 | Card #2 | OLB | Loan #1 | Loan #2 | Mtg | Invest | Insure |
| Voice home | |||||||||
| Voice mobile (Sue) | |||||||||
| Voice mobile (Joe) | |||||||||
| Email pers (Sue) | |||||||||
| Email pers (Joe) | |||||||||
| Email work (Sue) | |||||||||
| Email work (Joe) | |||||||||
| Website message | |||||||||
| Text (Sue) | |||||||||
| Text (Joe) | |||||||||
| App (Sue) | |||||||||
| App (Joe) |
If that wasn't complicated enough, unique regulations can govern each channel and/or product. Some examples: new mortgage rules for a single source of contact; time-of-day preferences (don't text me while I'm asleep); and privacy issues (don't alert my spouse to card charges).
And this table gets bigger if you add mail, in-branch, ATM messages or more products such as small business accounts, savings/CDs, and accounts held jointly with other family members. You could also add inbound vs. outbound calls/messages.
But one person's mess is another's opportunity. Fintech companies are hard at work on solutions that turn multi-channel snarls into opportunities to increase satisfaction and/or cut costs.
One key player is Seattle-based Varolii, which delivered my aha moment last month. In a followup last week, I had a chance to sit down with CEO David McCann and have a wide-ranging conversation about customer messaging in the age of the voice/email/text/notifications. I was impressed, both with the enormity of the challenge of coordinating customer messaging, and with the solutions it offers (note 1).
Then yesterday, I met with Amit Ashman, Marketing Director at Nice, who happened to be here on a whirlwind visit from their headquarters in Israel. His company, which booked $200 million in revenues last quarter, provides call-center technology for large U.S. financial institutions. They have developed a very cool call-center/mobile-app solution about to be unleashed on the world. It blends self-service with agent support in a relatively seamless fashion that I suspect will be the industry standard five years from now.
It's convinced me to write a report on Multi-Channel Customer Support for our Online Banking Report (note 2). We are also looking to recruit more companies in this area to 2012 Finovate events. So, please email suggestions for solutions providers and/or financial institutions who are tackling the problem.
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Notes:
1. Great tagline, "Better return on interactions"
2. The multi-channel report won't be published until early next year. However, we've tackled remote customer service and messaging a number of times in previous issues of our Online Banking Report. The last one was Live Help earlier this year.
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Good article Jim. It is complicated with so many channels, products, constraints -- and new information added over time. One of our challenges in lead-gen is to output leads so they land in the right box on the "message board" (e.g. Sue took a $10 Starbucks Gift Card offer to sign up for Bill Pay on 11/18/11 at 5:31PM) to get proper follow-up to closure through the FI's CRM system. But, once done -- it's a powerful way to demonstrate listening competence with customers and win a lot of new business.
I agree with Devon. Multichannel communication is daunting and very challenging. When not implemented correctly, customers will be bombarded with generic offers and occasionally conflicting messages that are potentially off putting (I wrote about a personal experience with this in a blog post, Adopt Enterprise Cross-Sell, Your Customers Will Thank You). However, when all the dots are connected multichannel messaging serves as an invaluable tool for customer acquisition and retention.
Jim, have a look at Message Systems (www.messagesystems.com), the company I work for. I believe our sw can take much of the mess out of multichannel messaging. : )