Personalization in Banking

 The new-age customers are accustomed to the services that they get from the Big Techs like Apple, Google, Amazon or Netflix. They expect the same level of personalization from their banks today. Banks and other financial service providers, therefore, need to start thinking about customer experience and offer personalization in banking, to meet the unique needs of every customer.

Need for personalization in banking

Personalization in banking refers to delivering customers with personalized services and products based on their behavior, transaction and other data. It essentially means offering customers services that are contextual and relevant to their needs. This develops trust between the customer and the bank, which further benefits the bank in terms of better customer stickiness  and improved revenue. Personalization can be delivered across platforms, including branch, apps as well as call centers, making the customer’s experience more valuable.

Why personalization is the way to go

There are many reasons why personalization must be incorporated into banking. Some of these reasons include:

• Today customer loyalty is fragile. To be able to ensure customer retention and acquire new customers, banks must be able to offer personalized offerings and deliver value.
• Personalization helps increase customer satisfaction. It also allows for cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.
• Through personalization, banks can stay relevant in the customer’s life and help solve a problem, while also becoming a trusted advisor. 

Benefits of personalisation in banking

The benefits of having personalization in bank are as follows:

• A central repository of products to help make the right offers: Personalization allows banks to offer the right product, product bundles, deals, price and offers, keeping in mind the customer’s need. It helps break away from silos and look at products across lines of business (LoB). This allows banks to easily design and launch customized offerings across LoBs.

• Customer insights to ensure a superior customer experience:  Banks can use technology to glean customer data and arrive at insights to make better offerings to customers. These insights help offer relationship-based banking services. This further influences customer behavior and drives growth.

• Empower customers: Customers are empowered as they get complete transparency and control over their relationship with the bank. This thereby enhances their trust in the bank.
• Increase core capabilities: Banks can avoid expensive legacy modernization projects by increasing the core capabilities of existing systems by adding a middle layer that manages all the engagement functions, while the core remains the system of record. 

Key considerations for personalization in banking

• Leverage gathered customer data. By this, we mean that banks must better utilize the vast volumes of data they already have. By organizing and utilizing this data by adding an intelligence layer over the core, banks can instantly make personalized offerings to customers on the go. When frontend staff is empowered by such data they get more time to build relationships.

• Give importance and reliance to technology. Banks must break away from silos and look at a central intelligence layer. Such a solution can be integrated with core systems and help banks remain agile and provide personalized solutions. 

In conclusion, there are many reasons why banks must introduce personalization through a middle layer solution. Not only do the customers benefit from personalization, but banks too reap several benefits, and most importantly win customer loyalty.