|
National Study Shows Shift in Retail Banking Communications Strategies to Meet Rising Consumer Demand for Mobile and Personalized Options
SEATTLE, WA, Feb 15, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) --
A recent survey of customer communication trends in the U.S. retail
banking industry shows that there is a shift in how customers seek
and respond to information. Banks are beginning to adjust their
priorities to meet consumer demand and focus on consumer engagement
through new and better solutions that are more adept at reaching
mobile customers, providing self-service options and better aligning
communications to customer behavior and preferences to generate
higher response rates. Notably, nearly one in four respondents report
that developing a competitive mobile and online strategy is
anticipated to present one of the greatest challenges to their
business over the next two years.
The study, commissioned by Varolii Corporation, a market leader in
cross-channel customer interaction management (CIM), surveyed more
than 1,000 retail banking executives nationwide in more than 200
organizations on a variety of questions about their interaction
strategies with consumers. The survey showed a need to better align
with customer behavior and preferences. In fact, only two percent of
respondents use text messaging as one of their top vehicles to
communicate with customers, even though studies show that 53 percent
of consumers prefer text notifications over other channels.
Additionally, only four percent of companies say they use smartphone
applications as a top communications method and only 11 percent
utilize mobile banking.
The research exposes significant opportunities for businesses to
optimize and elevate their customer interactions with an approach
that leverages cost-effective digital and mobile options to deliver a
better customer experience. "Every customer interaction that
companies have is an opportunity to build a stronger relationship.
With the growing popularity of smartphones, customers expect a more
'connected' experience from the banks they interact with. Customers
want extensive self-service options and expect to be engaged through
multiple channels like text messaging, email, social media,
interactive voice and mobile applications. Banks that are able to
provide their customers with these experiences in a coordinated
approach, will not only win more new customers and greater market
share, but will build lasting relationships with existing customers,"
said Brian Moore, industry practice manager at Varolii.
Key findings reveal:
-- Banks recognize the value of digital solutions but many still rely on
traditional outreach methods. Banks recognize the potential cost
benefits of using an automated system, but nearly half (45 percent) of
banks still use agents to manually call customers on their mobile
phones. Additionally, more than 54 percent of respondents still use
direct mail to reach customers, despite evidence that direct mail
typically has a 2 percent or lower response rate, and more
cost-effective digital solutions are available.
-- Customer preferences are not yet widely tracked. Many retail banks
still fail to track customer interaction preferences when it comes to
determining the best approach to interact with customers. Less than
half (41 percent) of companies report that they track customer
preference data.
-- Customers have a growing desire to self-serve. Nearly half of the
respondents surveyed (49%) agree that further automating customers
communications and giving customers more options to self-serve is both
a top customer preference and could drive greater efficiencies in the
contact center.
-- Banks struggle to distinguish mobile phone numbers, creating a hurdle
for the move to texting. The survey found that more than half (54
percent) of companies don't know how many numbers on their contact
list are actually mobile phones. Among those who don't currently
contact their consumers via mobile devices, nearly one-third say they
don't have access to mobile numbers and more than one in four says the
technology systems are not in place to reach mobile customers.
"The results of our study show that banks see value in proactive
customer engagement and understand that communicating effectively
with customers improves the bottom line. It's clear that banks need
to evolve to a cross-channel interaction approach to optimally reach
their increasingly digital consumers," said Moore. "While many banks
are pioneering with social media, there is clearly an opportunity to
accelerate the retirement of direct mail and shift that operating
expense to increase automated voice, text, and smartphone
interactions to deliver better results, a better experience, and
reduce overall costs."
Varolii works with leading Fortune 1000 business-to-consumer (B2C)
companies, including two of the three largest U.S. banks. Varolii has
worked with more than 150 financial services clients to design
Interaction workflow applications to enhance customer service,
collections, employee communication and contact center strategy.
Varolii enables more than 400 organizations to interact with
consumers or employees in a smart, personalized and cost effective
way with its cross channel, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform --
Varolii Interact.
Study Methodology
The 2011 Retail Banking Survey was jointly
developed by Varolii, US Banker, Banking Technology News and Lodestar
Research. Respondents consisted of more than 1,000 executives from
more than 200 organizations around the country. For more information
on the 2011 Retail Banking Survey, please download the full report
here.
About Varolii Corporation
Varolii is a leading provider of customer
interaction management applications. Our cloud-based communication
applications help organizations more effectively interact with large
numbers of customers and employees through voice, text messages,
smartphone applications and email, reducing cost of operations and
improving service. The company's flagship capability -- Varolii
ID(TM) -- enables companies to deliver true 1-to-1 communication on a
large scale, achieving better results from fewer notifications. More
than 400 companies trust Varolii to manage more than four million
interactions every business day. For more information, visit
www.varolii.com.
For more information:
Jessica Kendall
Edelman PR
206-268-2231 (office)
210-859-6971 (mobile)
Email Contact
SOURCE: Varolii
http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/emailprcntct?id=716CD13BD9A8BC66
[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
|
TMCnet LOGIN
Webinars
