By: Jeremiah Lotz, Managing Vice President, Digital & Data, Primax
Whether financial institutions realize it or not, the future of the financial services industry will be heavily shaped and impacted by access to and full utilization of data science and analytics. By using cardholder data to the fullest, financial institutions can drive strong business decisions and create the unique, personalized experiences their customers have come to expect.
Defining Data Science & Analytics Today
Current data and analytics solutions are used to power a variety of functions that enable us to improve the customer experience in many ways. These functions include, but are not limited to:
- Day-to-day operational reporting, providing a look into the financial institution’s key statistics and performance.
- Business intelligence, including key insights that drive decisions on business direction and strategic investments.
- Consumer insights, communications and marketing, which leverage data to identify an understanding of a customer’s behavior and drive offers or messages that are based on their needs.
- Enabling digital experiences, which can drive action in preferred digital channels – whether that is the website, mobile app, contact center or branch.
- Predictive analytics, which uses predictive modeling and data science to offer more precise and personalized experiences and interactions with customers.
An ideal data and analytics suite will go beyond just a flexible data management and warehouse strategy to support ad-hoc queries, data enrichment and data discovery. Banks with a comprehensive solution suite will be able to drive actionable insights by collecting and analyzing enriched data to create a holistic view of customer behavior. On the other hand, those without will run the risk of customer attrition.
How Data Science & Analytics Drive Connected Experiences
The possibilities are endless when the power of data analytics is combined with modern consumer experience channels and ever-evolving technology. One positive outcome is connected experiences, which stem from a vision to bring all customer data and channels together to produce highly personalized interactions that meet or exceed consumer service expectations, fulfill revenue opportunities and potentially drive down operating expenses. Positive experiences across all channels and financial products benefit both the customer and the financial institution, facilitating high-value servicing, promoting product adoption and supporting engaging and personalized communications.
There are several ways to consider creating connected experiences for customers. Each interaction should be improved by the best-known information about the customer and their prior experiences with both products and channels, consistently connecting relevant data to optimize the capabilities of each channel. For example, a customer may begin a business process in one channel, like the mobile app, but not complete it and subsequently accesses a different channel for assistance, like the contact center, to finish the process. In this instance, banks can create a connected experience by using cross-channel context sharing so that the second channel, the contact center, already knows where the customer left off on the mobile app and is able to continue the process from that point.
The Value of Connected Experiences
Data-driven experiences already show tremendous value for financial institutions, with a promising future on the horizon. There are many cases in which connected experiences can be leveraged to directly increase value.
Revenue can be increased by engaging customers via personal experiences on each of their channels through card activation, onboarding journeys and loyalty programs. Accelerate penetration growth by leveraging customer interactions through new card/loan offers, new customer acquisition and top of wallet strategies. In addition, losses can be reduced by protecting customers and banks in all interactions through expanded user authentication, geographic and transaction velocity patterns, fraud alerts across all channels, comprehensive identity management and privacy compliance. Finally, improve the customer experience by using channels to meet them where they are. This can look like personalized messaging and channel preferences, anticipating service requests, controls to avoid offer and/or communication overload and more.
Each interaction can become a data point used to uncover insights into customer preferences and habits to benefit both the customer and the financial institution. Using these data points, banks can not only better serve their customers by anticipating needs and creating personalized experiences, but also to increase revenue, build loyalty and grow their organization.
Jeremiah Lotz directs Primax’s initiatives to empower financial institutions with innovative and engaging payment solutions. With a focus on creating exceptional digital experiences based on data-driven intelligence, Lotz leads an experienced team dedicated to delivering Primax’s data science, analytics and digital experience solutions.
