Currently, banking is one of the sectors with the highest degree of customer infidelity. Some measurements reveal rates of between 2% and 4% in total cancellation of contracts. All in all, these data provided by some entities show an overly optimistic attitude towards the problem, since it must be taken into account that in reality customers with empty accounts are also disassociated, which causes rates to grow to figures that are between 7% and 14%. In addition, there are few entities that carry out a realistic analysis of the levels of untying of balances and transactionality, levels that undoubtedly also have an impact on margin drops, which means that we can reach percentages of between 15% and 25%. %, and even up to 35% in customer value.

Cognodata has analyzed the problem of customer infidelity in the banking sector in collaboration with more than 15 multinational financial entities, some of which have managed to reduce their levels of disengagement thanks to the help that Cognodata has given them through the implementation of new forms of management directed by the survey of its clients and the analysis of their data. And it is that acting on this problem supposes a significant impact in the reduction of dismissals in the short term: being able to reduce the levels by only 1% increases the profitability of the business between 5% and 10%.

Customer disengagement, a battle for trust

All the financial entities analyzed recognize the problem of customer infidelity as one of the main barriers that prevents them from growing faster and with greater profitability. Among the most frequent actions to reduce dismissals we find the following:

The choice of retention strategy, key to achieving loyalty

Most entities continue to have significant customer loyalty problems because they articulate unrelated initiatives, with a product vision and directed by internal capabilities rather than by customer needs.

Faced with this erroneous view, Cognodata proposes treating customer loyalty as a more global problem, so that the focus is not on leakage, but rather on the increase in the percentage of loyal customers who increase their loyalty in each period and that said linkage metric has a direct relationship with the income and the permanence of the client in the entity.

There are no shortcuts to customer loyalty: From the first step of the acquisition process, the customer experience has to be excellent. Each client has a perception based on their profile, market and past experiences, and this perception is reality. Entities must measure the level of satisfaction of their customers to direct the efforts of continuous improvement of the service and commercial activity and thus improve the experience of their customers. A positive and sustained experience generates increases in bonding and long-term loyalty.

Analytics-based prioritization, the path to success

The investment required to achieve service excellence is very high. Entities must prioritize investments based on metrics from market research and customer intelligence. Prioritization should lead to the greatest increases in satisfaction that generate the greatest increases in bonding and permanence.

Interactions

The vast majority of interactions that customers have with the entity on a day-to-day basis do not contribute to improving the level of customer satisfaction. The focus for all of these interactions should be to optimize processes and not make mistakes, since these do have a very negative effect on something that is expected to work correctly, such as balancing account balances.

However, there are a number of key interactions whose good resolution catapults customer satisfaction and loyalty. Some of these interactions are in the service area, such as dealing with card blockages abroad or loss of cards. Others in the commercial area, such as investment advice or contracting a loan for a specific personal objective. The focus for these interactions must be the proportional allocation of resources and people with a sufficient level of training and well-aligned incentives.

Finally, another amount of proportional resources must be destined to excite the client. Each entity to its extent, and the larger ones with greater capacity, must identify and put into place improvements in the service with the aim of surprising the customer and differentiating itself from the competition. Some achieve it with their social commitment, others with their technological sophistication in alternative channels, others with their image of exclusivity.

High-value customer segmentation

On the other hand, not all customer segments have the same value for the entity, nor do they have the same profile or relate through the same channels. A retired personal banking client, who goes to the office every week, does not expect the same as a young professional whose main channel is the web, or the owner of an expanding business. What clients expect of their entities to be satisfied varies. Consequently, the value of each of the segments for the entity also varies, so it is key to carry out segmentation and analytical prioritization to rationalize efforts.

Given the large number of improvements to be made in organizations to generate an excellent level of service and surprise customers who have increasingly higher expectations, Cognodata recommends prioritization based on analytics. The objective is to increase the level of satisfaction and, therefore, the connection and loyalty of its customers. Media is divided into three large areas:

  • Prioritize improvements in the service based on the gaps that generate a higher level of customer dissatisfaction and monitor the impact of the changes.
  • Prioritize commercial activity to attend in an exceptional way the moments of truth that the highest value customers really value or that even generate emotions that they will hardly forget.
  • Put into place a solid system for preventing terminations, customer retention and their recovery based on predictive analytics and prioritizing the terminations with the greatest impact on revenue and customer value.

The Cognodata study in which more than 15 multinational financial entities have participated makes clear their concern about the problem posed by leaks. However, their approach tends to be isolated, reactive and focused on this specific problem, and they do not show an overall concern about improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Cognodata, on the other hand, proposes a proactive, analytics-driven approach to improving fidelity. This approach focuses on the identification of key customer interactions based on the segment and on the prioritization of investments based on the increase in satisfaction and the customer value generated.