Cisco’s Financial Services Industry Marketing team is pleased to welcome a monthly contribution from industry professionals sharing their insights and observations on key trends in the Financial Services industry. The opinions expressed in these posts are those of our welcomed guests and may not reflect the opinions of Cisco.

Jerry Silva, Principal at PG Silva Consulting, is a 25 year industry veteran and thought leader in retail banking. He recently had the opportunity to discuss what comprises a high quality customer experience with Kelly McSwain-Campbell, Customer Experience Director at US Bank. In this role, Kelly is responsible for working across the enterprise with all lines of business and channels to help ensure teams deliver a differentiated customer experience that builds stronger and deeper relationships.

Delighting the Customer: Simple Works

As a banker and technologist, I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with systems that manage customer self-service channels like the ATMs and online banking, or with the systems that bank staff uses to interact with the customer. As a consumer of banking services myself, I’ve always been interested in the people side of services delivery and how banks can deliver quality experiences at the branch and the attended contact center.

I recently had a chat with Kelly McSwain-Campbell, SVP and Customer Experience Director at Minneapolis-based US Bancorp, and asked her for some insight into today’s challenges and how she manages to delight the customer in spite of the increasing complexity of the banking environment. Organizational and technology complexity sometimes work to hinder our ability to provide an excellent customer experience and we as bankers sometimes find ourselves even more distant from our customers.

But during my discussion with Ms. McSwain-Campbell, she made it clear that given the challenges with managing customer expectations across the multiple delivery channels, she is focusing on simple but effective ways to stay connected with customers at each point of interaction. We spoke about three areas that can ensure customers continue to enjoy the best banking experience possible. Read More »

Tags: branch, Cisco, customerexperience, Financial Services, personalized service, retail banking

Some might argue that retail banking is known more for its inconveniences than its convenience. As an example, the common term ‘banker’s hours’ is synonymous with “being open for the shortest and most inconvenient amount of time”. Despite that legacy, retail banks have made a concerted effort and real progress to extend services through various delivery channels to improve the retail banking customer experience.

Banks may have closed the customer service gap with other industries, but like other industries, must stay ahead of the consumer to deliver an experience that provides profitable value and differentiation. According to a recent report, what most customers want from their banks is greater access and more personalized experiences (in the form of advice, products, and services).

It’s not a surprising conclusion especially to the banking industry which has adapted a retail industry term -- omnichannel -- to describe the needed capabilities to deliver a consistent customer experience across all channels.

The Cisco Connected Customer Experience Report for Retail Banking -- a global survey of consumers and bank professionals conducted in early 2013 -- highlights the opportunities and the challenges that banking institutions face in meeting current and future customer expectations. Globally, consumers ranked Read More »

Tags: branch, Cisco, customer, customerexperience, delivery channel, Financial Services, omnichannel, personalized service, retail banking

Technology has and will continue to be a key enabler across every product delivery channel within the financial services sector. You simply need to explore some of the newer bank branches, available applications within app stores or investigate online innovations inherent in many institutions’ web presence to see how engrained technology has become in the customer experience. While firms are making this transition in differentiated form factors and across different channels, the trend itself is clear and pervasive; underpinned by the “anywhere, anytime” mantra and the continued consumerization of technology.

These channel developments cut across all products, but all have one common element – enabling improved and increased collaboration between institutions, their clients, businesses and/or consumers to drive accretive revenue. While these developments have and will continue to deliver impressive initial returns, they are largely siloed by either a business unit and/or delivery channel. The true potential value can only be unlocked by enabling a seamless and contextual integration of the physical, direct and mobile channels – the evolution from multi-channel to omnichannel.

The omnichannel model enables the customer to choose how and by what method they want to conduct their business, be that in person, via a mobile device, from the home, online or with telephony. Cisco’s IBSG team has published a white paper that looks into the transformation of institutions from multi-channel to omnichannel. While the method of communication is important, the true differentiator in transformational channel evolution is the ability to integrate interaction. Institutions must be aware of the context and outcomes of customer interactions as customers move from channel to channel, product to product, or business line to business line.

From an institutional point of view, the value in the omnichannel impacts multiple factors. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, customer experience, Financial Services, insurance, omnichannel, remote expert, retail banking

Cisco attended the Next Generation Insurance Summit (March 11-13) in Newport Beach, CA and the Best Practices in Retail Financial Services Symposium (March 13-15) in Carlsbad, CA. Some of the top minds in the financial services industry were in attendance and it was great to see these leaders deliver ideas and solutions for how to further the customer experience for both industries as well as the agent experience in insurance. Both conferences focused on reducing the amount of time it takes to adopt new technology and innovative ideas for competitive advantage, a current problem many financial institutions are going through.

At the Next Generation Insurance Summit, Cisco’s Michael Cantwell, Financial Services Solutions Architect, delivered a keynote on building a customer centric distribution network and how the expectations of today’s insurance customer has of their insurance institution/agent. He stated that from the end customer’s point of view everything is getting more integrated and simplified, but that insurers have yet to create that agent or customer omnichannel capability that allows for communication channel choice as well as fluid switching during an interaction to answer questions or assist in self-directed channels. Michael also touched on how enabling insurers with new tools and technologies, including sales force automation and mobile devices, will be key to fulfilling overarching business goals of improving sales interactions through traditional channels and, therefore, driving revenue.

Attendees showed immediate interest when Michael spoke about the best methods for line of business executives to work with their IT executives and vice versa. The success of customer retention rates among insurers who have incorporated Cisco solutions to improve customer-centricity was also of special interest to attendees. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, customer experience, Financial Services, insurance, multichannel, omnichannel, retail banking

Geoff is the Lead for Cisco’s Business Transformation solutions for the Financial Services Industry in Canada. To read Geoff’s full bio, please click Here.

This is the first in a series of blogs where I will discuss the capabilities that are driving innovation in the design and structure of retail financial services organizations. These capabilities shape where and how work is done, how resources are allocated and positioned, where geographic expansion  is executed, how customer points of presence are designed and staffed and how workplaces are configured. In sum, these capabilities offer new ways to engineer retail financial services organizations, the service delivery models that are critical to superior client experience and highly productive and cost-effective operations. Organizations that embrace and implement these capabilities will have a significant edge.

Imagine for a moment that you and your executive team are working to establish a new upstart financial services firm in a market with established competitors.

1. How would you shape and structure your organization, operating model and service delivery system so that your retail bank, insurance and wealth management businesses can effectively compete with the established players?
2. What would you offer that would drive superior, clearly differentiated level of satisfaction to the point where more clients move their assets to your firm?
3. What factors would influence and guide your organizing model? Also, what capabilities would be essential to win market share, enable cost effective expansion and growth?
4. What choices would you make in terms of how you allocate and locate your critical knowledge experts to drive the differentiated level of service and simultaneously achieve high productivity and the requisite level of profitability?
5. What infrastructure assets would you decide to own and operate within your organization, and which would you choose to have outside and provided by others?
6. Finally, how much time and focus would you and your executive team place on those assets and capabilities that make these advantages possible?

These are a few of the decisions and choices that would be paramount to you and your executive team. Why? Because these decisions and choices will influence the success of your enterprise. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, customer experience, Financial Services, innovation, retail banking