Abstract
Boston, MA. - August 3, 2009 - - The critical element in selling and
cross-selling banking products and services is selling the bank itself. In an
environment of anxiety and diminished trust in the country' s financial
institutions, banks must align their brands with the interests and aspirations
of their customers. If a bank can synch its very essence with that of its
customers, it has earned a position of authenticity and legitimacy from which
to speak to customers, hear their issues and offer targeted products and
services that lift customers, communities and the institution itself.
A new report from Mercator Advisory Group' s Retail Banking Practice,
Cross-Selling Through Multiple Channels: Soft Selling to the Jittery
Customer offers an in-depth examination of the principal retail bank
channels through which customers touch the bank and identify the best in class
banks and vendors optimizing the power of technology and people to best serve
and market additional products and account services to customers. The report
also identifies and discusses business process hazards undermine the efforts
of banks brands, personnel and technologies to deepen their consumer
relationships.
The report examines each of the major channels retail banking customers use to
transact with their banks and discusses specific products best sold through
specific channels. While call centers are best used for the selling of DDA
related products, an iPhone app is offered for bill payment and can displace
numerous calls to a bank' s call center or IVR. Each retail banking channel
must shoulder two responsibilities for marketing the bank: It must act as an
agent of the bank' s brand and it must market that brand even as it
aggressively sells customers additional bank products and services.
In the next five years, the channels offering the greatest value for customers
and the greatest cross-sell opportunities for banks are the smart phone and,
perhaps surprisingly, the branch.
Banks entwining real time communications with real-time banking are making a
land grab for new retail banking customers. Smart phone technology is a key
banking channel in the reification of real time transactionality which is
becoming central in the industry' s New Normal.The branch, that iconic image of
the banking industry' s and the specific bank' s brands will be where the
bankers sit as they speak via videoconference with their customers. With the
ubiquity of laptop and cell phone cameras, at home videoconferencing is poised
to take off for banks and their customers. Finally customers will be able to
talk about their retirement goals, home refinancing plans or loan
restructuring needs in the location that feels most secure and most private:
their own home. And not only will those conversations happen at the location
of the customer' s choosing, but also according to the customer' s schedule.
Creating this enormous value for the consumer on the customer' s own terms
generates a higher close rate for these cross-selling pitches.
“Cross-selling, with its myriad channels, technology deployments both
internal and external to the bank, communication demands, product arrays and
business process demands, is clearly a challenging feat within the retail
bank” comments Elizabeth Rowe, Group Director of Mercator Advisory
Group' s Banking Advisory Services and author of the report. “New
technology and communication channels can prime the customer' s receptivity to
a new account or service and while engaging in that soft-sell, needs-based
discussion, can concurrently communicate and reinforce the bank' s brand. In a
time of economic roiling, a collaborative sales approach in which the customer
is treated as a full and vested partner, is the key to successful cross-sales
efforts. Other new technologies can then be advantaged to clench the sale and
deepen the product/relationship ties binding together the bank and the
customer.”
Report Highlights Include:
- Across all bank service delivery channels, the most important question
when positing what-will-I-sell-next is what is the next reasonable product in
the financial acquisitional life of the customer? While DDA-related services
are always prime sales offerings (and particularly appropriate to the
straight-forward interactions of the call center channel), larger, more costly
products and services generally are acquired sequentially.
- Cross selling initiatives must be platformed on the bank/credit union
brand. In addition to selling the next product to the accountholder, each
sales interaction must also advocate for the brand.
- More than products, technology and very human glitches, it is business
process hazards that undermine the efforts of banks in their efforts to deepen
their customer relationships through account growth and cross-sell their
personnel and the prospects of deepening consumer relationships.
- However, with the wave of new social technology channels, products and
services engaging bank customers in the marketplace, it is critical that banks
test those platforms as venues for communicating, transacting and selling to
their customers.
- A bank able to synch its sales products and processes with the interests,
needs and schedules of its customers has earned its access to a greater share
of its customers' wallets.
This report contains 41 pages and 10 exhibits.
Companies Mentioned in This Report:
S1, ATG, Bank of America, chatCommerce, Citibank, Diebold, E-LOAN, Facebook,
FDIC, First Tennessee Bank, ING Direct Canada, J.D. Power and Associates,
JPMorgan Chase, LivePerson Business Solutions, Maritz, National Australia
Bank, Quick & Reilly, TD Bank, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
LIVING THE BRAND
I. TECHNOLOGY CHANNELS
- THE HUMBLE ATM
- MARKETING CHALLENGES FOR ATMS
- WHAT ARE BANKS OFFERING THOSE ATTENTIVE CONSUMERS?
- THE CALL CENTER
- OFFER THE UPSELL AND OFFER DDA-CENTRIC PRODUCTS
- LIVE CHAT
II. GOING WHERE THE CUSTOMERS ARE
- SOCIAL NETWORKS
- USING FACEBOOK TO SELL/CROSS-SELL
- WIDGET WEAPONS
- TWITTER
- MOBILE BANKING:
- THE INTERNET
- THE BRANCH
- DIRECT MAIL
III. THE BANKS
- WELLS FARGO
- JPMORGAN CHASE
- BANK OF AMERICA
- CAPITAL ONE
IV. KEY TRANSACTIONS
- OPENING THE NEW ACCOUNT
- LAUNCHING CROSS-SALES FROM A SINGLE PRODUCT: THE MORTGAGE
- OR THAT SINGLE PRODUCT COULD BE INSURANCE
- CONCLUSION
List of Exhibits
- Figure 1: Channels Speaking to the Retail Bank's Customer
- Figure 2: Organic Progression of Product Acquisition
- Figure 3: Banks and credit unions are slowly beginning to stake out a
presence in new media
- Figure 4: Facebook is heavily used by networking BofA current and former
employees
- Figure 5: Bank of America hasn't culled flaming posts and hasn't fully
leveraged the communications/marketing power of Facebook
- Figure 6: Wells Fargo's Facebook Page has hundreds fans and no bank added
content
- Figure 7: Citibank came onto Facebook strongly in February 2009 and then
fell silent
- Figure 8: Mobile Banking Forecast: 2007-2011
- Figure 9: Banks' Direct Mail Volume related to new account acquisitions
and customer communications are up in 2008
- Figure 10: Wells Fargo's Debt Pay Down Solution wraps the customer's total
outstanding debit into a single Wells product
