When shoppers enter a Gap store, employees know they are there because they want to look good. They want something to wear that will be right for the occasion, will make them feel attractive, appropriate, fashionable... When customers walk into Starbucks, baristas know they want caffeine, they want it exactly the way they want it, and they want it fast. But when customers walk into a bank branch, what do tellers and bankers know and understand about why their customers are there? Do they communicate that understanding? Do they deliver a distinctive brand promise?

Successful companies focus not just on providing products that work, but also on developing affinity and loyalty by understanding customers, anticipating their needs and delivering an effective experience.

Focus on Customer Understanding

Often, bank employees are thinking strictly about products and transactions. The loan-of-the-month, the savings account on special. Are they thinking at all about what customers are trying to accomplish? Are they trying to understand whether the customer in front of them is trying to ensure they are building wealth effectively through the right combination of deposits and investments, or whether they're worried about funding a major purchase or a small business start-up?

Unfortunately, customer intentions are rarely top-of-mind with branch staff. It's particularly unfortunate since – more than any other business – banks have access to the information required to understand customers' intentions and, as a result, their needs. Banks see the payroll deposits, the debit and credit card spending, the cash outflows... We have a window on consumer behavior and financial condition that most companies would kill for. But few banks take full advantage of this insight for customers' benefit or for their own.

Accenture’s High Performance Marketing Research – in which we interviewed 700 marketing executives to understand how leading marketers are addressing 21st century challenges – revealed that developing and delivering the Branded Customer Experience is the most critical element of driving organic growth. To create an experience that builds utility, affinity and loyalty, banks must integrate information, workforces, processes and technologies.

Currently, banks' customer experiences – and as a result cross-sales and retention – are sub-optimal. Customer insight is key. To grow organically, Accenture believes, institutions must invest in key CRM capabilities to enable desired marketing, sales and service behaviors in the context of a program with clear short- and long-term targets that allow for careful management of ROI. This requires full integration of customer data to provide an accurate view of the customer and analytical capabilities to transform customer information into insight.

But developing insights is not enough. Business models and organizational structures as well as channel and platform technology must be renewed in order to create an effective, satisfying, profitable experience that is differentiated across segments and integrated across channels. Sales and service workforce behaviors must change, with employees becoming more effective in generating customer satisfaction and profitable sales – even through the upheavals that organizational and technological revolution will deliver. Banks need an effective, empowered, well-trained salesforce able to transform actionable customer insight into profitable, positive interactions.

Renewal of Core Systems

Fundamental to the transformation is the renewal of core systems technologies that support customer information, multi-channel interactions and operations. One area in which technology will be a key success driver is in product innovation and bundling. If banks can dynamically price and bundle products and services – customizing based on customer intentions and the degree to which they are willing to consolidate balances – sales become much more natural. Customers will proactively purchase multiple products, leaving banks less dependent on aggressive cross-selling efforts. Company and customer objectives will be aligned, and the bundles will increase both satisfaction and profitability. This requires significant effort, however, as banks must break down silos and deliver cross-business line solutions.

The technology evolution will provide further opportunities to differentiate business models and anticipate market and consumer trends; there are clear opportunities through developing integrated next generation capabilities and experiences in the branch, contact center, mobile and Internet. These efforts are transformational in nature and will require multiple years of effort, but the banks that get this right – optimizing the branded customer experience – will deliver high performance: not only increased customer satisfaction, but also market-leading cross-sales, retention and overall growth.

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