Is Your IT Network Ready For The Demands Of Anywhere, Anytime Banking?

Technology has become the driving force of change. It’s no longer business as usual in the banking industry — the customer experience has changed forever. Banking customers are empowered, expecting exceptional service on an anytime-anywhere basis via the channel of their choice. Loyalty is reserved for who is best serving them at the moment. In the current multi-channeled banking model, customers are directed to the channel of least cost, how to start a social media marketing business but this siloed business approach to services and products can result in increasing dissatisfaction. The process is inefficient, inconsistent and costly. Today, adoption of omnichannel banking is essential to ensure that the customer experience is seamless, integrated and supports customers at the right time in the right place. It must fit into their mobile and digitally savvy lifestyles. Staying relevant in this digital banking revolution will require deep insight into your customers’ needs. It will also require the right IT — from infrastructure to innovative new technologies — to ensure you remain profitable and ahead of the curve in the increasingly competitive landscape. Ready or not, the new face of the banking customer has arrived, and it has drastically changed. Today’s how to social media marketing customers are technologically savvy, living an “anytime-anywhere” lifestyle enabled by mobile devices. They are empowered and know what they want — a personalized experience and exceptional service. Convenience is of the utmost importance, and they desire to interact with your institution through the communication vehicle of their choice, at their preferred time, and in the speediest and easiest way possible. Institutional loyalty no longer exists; if you don’t serve their needs, they will rapidly choose a competitor who does.

The Solution: An Omnichannel Banking Strategy

It’s time to break down the silos and transform the banking experience by implementing an omnichannel strategy. This concept is based on a single institution providing a customer-centric experience at the right place, the right time, the right way — and so smoothly transacted it becomes seamlessly embedded in the customer’s lifestyle. It ensures easy and consistent access to bank services and products that may span multiple channels. Today, social media marketing 2014 the challenge for many banking institutions is how to better connect with customers. The banks’ products, services and transactional vehicles/tools are not aligned with current customer behavior and demands. Empowered customers want the choice of multiple channels through which they can pursue their banking activities. Traditional banking operations are typically conducted in siloed lines of business (e.g., deposits, lending, wealth management) and often require a visit to a brickand-mortar location, especially for more complicated transactions. This can often be inefficient, costly to budgets and customer retention, and create an inconsistent bank experience. When real-time engagement with a specialist offering advice such as investment guidance is requested, individual customers and businesses can easily access that counsel remotely irrespective of the expert’s location. Branches can host a two-way video conference in a self-service kiosk, or video conferencing can best social media marketing be accessed via a home computer. Banks also benefit because they can eliminate the unnecessary overhead associated with staffing each branch with multiple experts. This allows them to optimize productivity during surges and lulls in activity and reduces the need for experts to travel from branch to branch. Today, more than one-quarter (28 percent) of customers value video access to remote experts.3

Converged media demands new integrated marketing approaches

Integrated marketing became a trend in the 1990s, but since then we’ve had two recessions and the social media revolution. Now the corporate marketing world still operates in silos of public relations, advertising, interactive, social and direct marketing. Yet our customers don’t experience our brands in these unique media outlets. People receive more than 3,000 messages a day and navigate diverse media environments from print, broadcast and billboard marketing by social media to five types of Internet screens (smartphone, tablet, laptop, PC and TV). The newest disciplines in the fold — social and mobile — accentuate this continuing situation. Most CEOs, CMOs and entrepreneurs acknowledge the importance of these new media forms, but attempt isolated campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. Many find social and mobile media ineffective, and frustrate themselves with these unintegrated attempts at making it work. We have seen some examples of social and mobile media’s independent successes, the building of groundswells of loyal customers. Consider the niche marketing of Etsy, the restoration of Dell’s brand, and the rise of local new media champion Living Social Inc. While incredibly impressive, companies seek to copycat them. Instead modern integrated marketing demonstrates how they should just integrate social into social media marketing the larger mix. We know the problem. Over the ensuing months, we’ll be discuss how your brand navigating the converged media environment. Some of these tips will be based on the latest breaking trends, others will be timeless techniques as discussed in"Marketing in the Round," a book about integrated marketing I recently co-authored with Gini Dietrich. Just as a sneak preview, think about how to integrate social into holistic marketing programs to achieve overarching corporate objectives. Your efforts will yield better results in this converged media environment. There are other strategic approaches beyond a groundswell that social media can support as part of a larger multichannel effort, for example customer service and blogger relations. As a long term member of the Washington business community, I look forward to our weekly discussion, and most importantly, working with you to resolve real marketing problems in the converging media marketplace.