The concept of interim leadership is becoming ever more important in the world of business, as the benefits of recruiting for specific expertise to deliver large-scale transformation or bolster capabilities to reach strategic objectives at crunch points becomes increasingly apparent.

In particular, interim leaders offer a unique solution to mid-cap, founder-led companies that find themselves grappling with the challenge of making themselves as attractive as possible to potential investors. They can help achieve this, while  maintaining the stability that underscores an organisation’s inherent market value.

‘Interims’ can drive rapid transformations and process improvements, bringing much needed experience and energy to make a company fully ‘deal ready’.

Considering this, Andrew McIntee, Director at people advisory firm New Street Consulting Group examines the crucial role interim leaders play in helping high potential businesses attract and secure the best possible investment deal.

Getting the Dynamics Right

Getting leadership dynamics right is one of the most delicate aspects of preparing for an important funding round. While a change in the leadership team just before a sale might hint at instability, the addition of the right kind of leadership skills and experience in the run up to going to market can significantly enhance a business’s appeal. This is where the strategic incorporation of interim professionals can provide the perfect balance.

These seasoned experts bring a level of flexibility and specialised skill often pivotal in maximising the value of a business and getting the best funding partner onboard. From a stability point of view, they do this without the permanence that could cause friction with existing leadership team members or signal unsteadiness to future investors.

Enhancing Value with Interim Experience

Indeed, the interim role is much more than simply acting as a stopgap; interims are experienced specialists who know what investors are looking for and can drive substantial, sustainable improvements and efficiencies that make a business more attractive to private equity firms. This includes everything from streamlining operations to ensuring the company is future-proofed and set for continued growth.

In addition, the flexibility of interim professionals allows them to undertake significant transformation projects – be it cost reduction, operational efficiencies, regulatory compliance, or even spearheading ESG initiatives – without burdening any potential new investors with long-term resource commitments.

When investors come on board, interim specialists can seamlessly move on, allowing new funders to work with the businesses’ permanent leadership on building on longer-term growth plans from a solid foundation.

Making a Business ‘Easy to Buy’

Of course, a key aspect of preparing for investment is making a business ‘easy to buy.’  Often, this involves a range of specialist issues that entrepreneurial leadership teams aren’t always versed in – for example, dealing with regulatory issues, optimising processes, and preparing rigorous deal rooms.

Interim talent is often ideal for helping permanent leadership teams deal with these requirements. While a situation may be completely new to your board, specialist Interims have seen it all before and know exactly what needs to be done and why.

The Commonality of Interim CFO

Given the value that Interims can bring in getting financial processes and reporting in a strong place for scrutiny by potential investors, it isn’t surprising that the CFO role stands out as the most commonly utilised of all interim leaders.

Specialist interim CFOs – typically highly experienced in helping businesses prepare for investment – act as trusted but temporary advisors, guiding the financial strategy to align with the expectations of potential investors. Not only does this help a business be as ‘deal room ready’ as possible, the fact that an experienced interim CFO is on board acts as a positive signal to potential investors in its own right.

That’s because investors will know they’ll be inheriting a well organised financial situation which has been guided by an experienced hand (and, of course, one who will also be perfectly placed to provide a smooth handover to their permanent replacement).

Interim Leadership and Cultural Integration

The smooth assimilation of operations and cultures between investor and investee is essential for the sustained success of the newly funded business. And another area where interim leaders excel is in facilitating post-investment synergies between company and backer.

Interim leaders, with their experience and strategic insight, are experts in helping existing teams identify and smoothly navigate potential culture clashes and operational roadblocks that might otherwise hinder the post-investment integration process.

Interims: A Wise Investment

For founder-led mid-cap businesses eyeing investment, the deployment of interim talent can be a game-changer. They not only bring the expertise necessary to enhance a company’s value and attractiveness to investors, but also offer a level of flexibility and strategic insight that can be difficult to replicate with permanent staff alone.

As businesses navigate the complexities of pre-buyout preparation, the decision to engage interim expertise could very well be the difference between a good investment and a great one.

New Street Consulting Group is the UK’s number one interim service provider^[1] , and has recently invested in a new Academy to tackle the shortage of Interim Management specialists in recruitment. For more information contact its team of consultants here.

Notes to editors
NSCG is a people advisory business that helps organisations find, assess, build, and accelerate teams and leaders who are as good in practice as they are on paper.

The business does this through services which can be accessed individually or as an integrated service, from interim management and executive search through to talent intelligence, leadership assessment and development.

NSCG can tailor solutions to any c-suite challenge with solutions such as finding great leaders, developing strong talent pipelines and building high-performing, flexible teams with all the right skills.

[1] https://iim.org.uk/service-providers/

Tradelines can be an excellent way of improving your credit score and ameliorating your overall financial position. However, this can only be achieved if you choose the right tradeline with the best tradeline company for your needs. The process of selecting a great tradeline company can be difficult, especially when you consider the wide range of companies to choose from and the extensive collection of information available to you. However, finding the right tradeline company for you is far from impossible – you simply need to know what to look out for. 

 1. Credit Limits

Most tradelines will have credit limits, whether they are $10,000, $15,000 or $25,000. This is an important consideration to keep in mind when choosing a tradeline company. If you anticipate that you’ll need to use a significant amount of credit to make major purchases, then you need a tradeline that will allow you to do so. Be sure to take a look at the credit limits of all the tradeline companies you’re researching. 

 2. Reviews

Since tradelines significantly impact your financial standing, you want to ensure you work with a tradeline company that is reputable. You tell if an enterprise has a high level of reputability by checking out its reviews. Reading reviews from previous customers allows you to gain insight into the experiences other people have had with this company. You’ll be able to see if people favour the company, what flaws they have pointed out, and as a result, you’ll have a better chance at gauging if the company is a good fit for you. There are many sites that allow you to read and cross-reference reviews of multiple tradeline companies. On these sites, you can find a Superior Tradelines review and compare it to a Coast Tradelines review to see which organisation comes out on top for your needs.

 3. Level of Experience

Ideally, you’d like to buy a tradeline from a knowledgeable company with plenty of experience buying and selling tradelines. As a general rule, it is advisable to work with a credit supply organisation with 10 or more years of experience. This will ensure that you’re working with seasoned specialists who know how to manage unexpected issues related to your tradeline and

4. Customer Support

Take an in-depth look at the customer service offerings of each organisation you’re considering. Do they have chatbots on their website that can help answer some FAQs? Do they have a support phone number or email that you can contact at any time?

There are several steps you can take to improve your credit score – and buying a tradeline with a reliable and trustworthy company is one of them. Although finding an organisation like this may seem like a tall task, it can be easier than you expect. As long as you put these four criteria at the forefront of your search, you’ll ensure that you pick the right tradeline company for your circumstance.

93% of UK bosses in the banking and finance sector think it’s important to be liked, while 90% of their staff are crying out for their day-to-day experience of work to be improved, research by People First has found.

Exploring the attitudes of 250 bosses and 250 employees in UK firms, the research revealed how employers lack an accurate picture of how staff feel and the way it affects their work.

84% of bosses responding think their staff are happy and 76% believe most of their employees are fully engaged in what they do. But only 64% of staff find work makes them happy and just 42% are fully engaged or absorbed in what they do to earn a living.

“Likeability is good in a boss,” said Mark Williams, Senior Vice President Product, People First. “But with so many employees in the banking and finance sector wanting their experience at work improved, you have to ask if bosses really understand their workforces. There’s obviously a happiness gap where managers believe morale is better than it really is. They are clearly failing to measure staff engagement regularly.”

The research found men are more likely to say their work really engages them (48%) than women (37%), reflecting the longstanding difference in support and career development offered to women, as well as the well-publicised gender pay-gap.

And lack of understanding plays a role in another difference between bosses and workers. Whereas 39% of employers believe most staff quit a job for emotional reasons, only 17% of employees say that’s the main cause of them handing in their notice.

From the research we can also see that more than half of UK banking and finance employees (56%) regard being rewarded for excellent work as important, while 51% want more opportunities for flexible working.

“Poor productivity is a British disease which we can cure through better understanding of what motivates employees and gets them into the flow where time flies and work is more enjoyable and fulfilling,” added Mark. “That’s why it’s important to rely on more than gut feeling about how happy or engaged staff are. Regular check-ins must replace the dated annual appraisal as only with regular conversations can an employer see the true picture of their employees.”

“There are so many different aspects to any banking and finance job, such as training, career development and flexible working, that making assumptions about what employees want is misguided. As an employer you need to know what makes your staff happy to work hard and what makes them leave.”

More than a third (38%) of IT decision-makers across the UK financial sector believe it has become more difficult over the past five years to find staff with the right skills and experience. Over a third (34%) believe the problem is going to worsen in the coming five years. This is according to a survey across a range of financial and banking sector organisations, including retail and investment banking, asset management, hedge funds and clearing houses.

The survey, commissioned by software vendor InterSystems found a shortage across a variety of roles. Almost a fifth (18%) of respondents cited a lack of data scientists followed by 17% who revealed a shortage in security consultant/specialists, while 16% referenced application developers and 12% mentioned financial analysts.

“IT skills shortages are clearly a major concern for banking and financial services firms across the UK and this is only likely to escalate in the future,” says Graeme Dillane, financial services manager, InterSystems. “Skills shortages are a barrier to innovation in the banking and financial services sector. And as firms upgrade their legacy systems and look to innovate to meet the latest wave of regulations, that represents an increasingly serious concern.”

When survey recipients were asked to name the key qualities that technology can bring to help mitigate the negative affect of skills shortages within businesses today, 44% of respondents said: ‘simplicity of use’, 42% cited ‘ease of implementation’ and 36% ‘high-performance’.   

The study also found that skills shortages are one of the biggest barriers preventing innovation as cited by 35% of the study, behind only cost (41%) while compliance was referenced by 31%.

“These findings match with our experience in talking to customers and prospects across the sector,” added Dillane. “IT employees with the skills that banks and financial services companies are looking for are in short supply. Knowledge transfer is therefore increasingly key alongside solutions which combine ease of development; simplicity of use; high-performance and intuitive workflow transfer.”

(Source: InterSystems)

What’s that saying? You’re more like to get divorced than you are to switch your bank account. Below Matt Shaw, Strategist at RAPP UK, explores why high-street banks need to re-connect with young customers or face losing the next generation to digital first challengers.

For ten years now consumers have been used to getting less from their banks. Lower interest rates, fewer high-street banks and little reward for their “loyalty”.

Against this backdrop a quiet revolution has begun. New digital first challenger banks like Monzo, Atom and Starling are offering something genuinely different and are hoover-ing up younger audiences in the process. What’s more, Open Banking is set to explode consumer choice and making comparing and switching banks easier.

While these challengers pose a threat, established retail banks have a limited window of opportunity. At the moment young consumers are using these challenger bank accounts as “play money”, a supplementary account, allowing them to budget better, rather than a direct rival to the Big Four. However, this “play money” perception is likely to change as customers become more engaged challenger banks’ products and their brands become more established and more trusted.

Traditional retail banks need to sit up and take note if they want to capture the next generation of customers.

Driving preference

Whilst loyalty may be dead, retail banks still have an opportunity to deliver value to their customer base and protect against digital first challengers. Rather than aiming for (and missing) loyalty, retail banks should look to consistently drive preference across the customer lifecycle.

At RAPP we use three key elements to drive preference: Value Perception, Customer Experience, and Generosity.

Good customer data is central to all three of these elements. While new digital first challenger banks have no issues with this, it’s safe to safe that many retail banks will need to get their legacy data and systems in order if they want to deliver these elements.

Value Perception

One of the easiest ways retail banks can drive preference is by reflecting and reminding customers of the value they receive and the relationship they have.

Digital first financial services are currently leading the way in this space. Savings app Chip uses AI to analyze customer data and recommend opportunities for them to squirrel away money into their account in real time. Whilst this is a great new customer experience, the app is also amazing at replaying value back to customers. When money is transferred from your account, their friendly chat bot notifies you with an encouraging message and a humorous gif telling you that you’re #winning. When you ask for your savings balance they not only replay your balance, but your savings to date, your interest rate, the value of this interest and when this interest is due.

Customer Experience

The customer experience gap between digital first challenger banks and established retail banks couldn't be much greater at the moment. Whilst new challenger banks have no high-street stores, they’re beating established banks where it counts, through digital and mobile apps.

Monzo, Starling and Atom offer a stark contrast to the mobile apps of established banks. Their platforms offer spending analytics, integration with third parties and enhanced functionality like bill splitting and money pots; in comparison established banks can offer only the most basic functionality (balance enquiries, payments). Moreover these new challenger banks are constantly evolving their offering, while established banks can only give their apps a UX facelift with no new functionality.

New challenger banks are raising expectations of what a bank should offer consumers, particularly among urban millennials – something established banks should be concerned about as they are the most likely audience to switch provider (32% say they are “very likely” to switch in the next year[1]).

Generosity

Generosity is all about recognizing and rewarding customer engagement through regular value-adds that make customers feel valued.

Retail banks need to get out of the habit of using the transactional rewards based on cash back and increased interest rates. Instead, retail banks should looks to create value through customer data and collaboration with third parties. Both Starling and Monzo have added “marketplace” functionality to their apps allowing third parties to offer customers their services. Starling have two “loyalty” schemes (Flux and Tail) offering customers instant cash back when they make a purchase at restaurants and shops. However, this functionality has the ability to grow exponentially, and into non-financial generosity, with Open Banking making it simple for banks and third parties to interact.

Established retail banks can no longer sit back and let inertia reign supreme. Not only are new banks challenging the status quo and winning younger audiences, their nimble user interfaces and pristine databases mean they are also the most likely to profit from the future innovations of Open Banking. Established retail banks need to wake up to the challenge and rediscover how to drive preference. They can do this by innovating their customer experience to match new heightened expectations, using customer data to replay value and by smattering their base with product and non-product generosity.

In 2018, consumers enjoy more choice and power over their purchasing decisions than ever before. The retail market has evolved to the point where the strength of a product and its price no longer call all the shots. Below Peter Caparso, President North America at Checkout.com, explains why payments may even be considered a commodity in today’s markets.

To stand out with a clear differentiator, merchants now need to emphasise the customer experience. As an essential business function, payments have long been considered a utility. But perceptions have shifted, and to compete and thrive in a hyper-competitive retail environment, merchants must focus on delivering excellence across the entire customer journey – and that includes the all-important payment experience.

As digital innovation continues to transform how people shop, the quality of the customer’s remittance experience is now just as important as any other commodity or offer. It needs to be easy, intuitive and user-friendly. Ultimately, it must make the buyer’s life easier, not just ensure that the seller gets paid.

Delighting customers

When a customer becomes disillusioned or discontent with their experience with one service provider, they have the power to simply switch to another. In fact, research reveals that some 54% of customers are being driven to the competition because of poor service.

In this regard, payment solutions are no different to any other commodity. Merchants need them, but they aren’t dependent on any particular provider. Instead, they choose the one that provides them with a smooth and frictionless payment service. This is a critical element of the wider customer experience and plays an important part in winning and retaining business.

Providers, therefore, have to supply merchants with relevant technologies such as mobile and desktop functionality, and stay up to date with innovations like voice activated payments. To keep up with innovation and trends, retailers need to work with tech-savvy payment service providers (PSPs) that can provide exceptional customer service and experience to whichever user base they serve.

And as new technologies continue to evolve how payments are processed, a collaborative relationship between merchants and their PSPs will be all the more important. Working in this way will enable merchants to harness new, innovative solutions effectively – and to deliver faster, better services to match market demand. They can continue to attract and delight customers, and make a profit.

Tech driven excellence

The challenge for many merchants, is that not enough PSPs are aware that a payment is in fact, a commodity. What’s more, while many succeed in developing and providing a top-class technology solution, they fail to consider its usability.

The best solutions succeed in merging excellent technology (i.e. automation), with superior customer service. And to achieve the latter, there needs to be room for authentic human engagement. It’s an almost paradoxical combination but finding the right balance is hugely important.

When a merchant signs up to a specific PSP, the PSP has an opportunity to forge a strong relationship. It can collaborate with the merchant to help solve problems, develop improvements and progress business. Of course, the PSP needs to provide a mobile-friendly purchasing and payment service – or risk losing business. However, the ability to delight the merchant goes beyond simply meeting their tech-driven needs.

PSPs that don’t work with merchants in this way have a much harder task ahead of them. They’ll need to make sure that their technology is 100% perfect at all times. Of course, this is always worth aiming for – but, without a more collaborative relationship in place, it only takes one glitch to drive the merchant into the arms of a competitor.

As we head deeper into 2018, merchants need to go above and beyond and pay even more attention to the customer experience they offer – or risk falling behind their competitors.

Banks that demonstrate low fraud rates will be able to offer frictionless customer experience by escaping legal requirement for extra authentication.

The upcoming Payment Services Directive - due to come into full force in January - has the sometimes competing objectives of facilitating innovation while also strengthening security and protecting customers.

New technology developments in the industry have been known to create sharp increases in the amount of fraud. Losses due to online banking fraud grew by 64 percent from £81.million in 2014 to reach £133.5million in 2015. Yet, high levels of investment in fraud detection and prevention technologies by banks have now helped to reverse the trend - with losses falling 24% in 2016.[1]

The developments under PSD2 will require a new emphasis on tackling the issue. The number of payment service providers who have access to customer data will increase. A greater range of companies will become part of the transaction chain.

Whilst the PSD2 seeks to bring more frictionless transactions for customers, it also includes a legal requirement for payment service providers to use Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) if their fraud detection and prevention rates are not robust enough. Firms will pay a double price if fraud rates increase after PSD2, as they will be required to introduce more friction into the customer experience of payments.

As PSD2 opens up the transaction chain to more providers, Farida Gibbs, of technology consultancy Gibbs Hybrid, warns that banks will have to adapt their fraud detection systems, but can use their fraud prevention capabilities to deliver real competitive advantage.

Farida Gibbs, CEO of Gibbs Hybrid, comments: “As Open Banking creates increased competition in payment services, it will be increasingly important for banks to demonstrate low levels of fraud. SCA, which requires added authentication from the user and can result in customers searching for an alternative payment processor, which is able to process payments without this layer.

“Banks and other financial services firms have put a lot of time and effort into technologies behind fraud detection and prevention. Technology that enables a firm to pick up early warning signs of fraud and promptly send text and email alerts to customers, for example, has been very important in keeping losses to a minimum. And banks have had to implement this despite the challenges of legacy systems and outdated technology processes.

“Their success in reducing the level of fraud losses through online banking is testament to the forward-thinking work that is being done. This will become even more important as Open Banking approaches.

“The legal requirement to put in place Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) will create much greater friction for consumers, but those firms who are able to demonstrate outstanding fraud management will be allowed to use Transaction Risk Analysis (TRA) instead. This has the great benefit of being invisible to customers, introducing no further delays into their payments.

“Analysing transactions behind the scenes for unusual behaviour is not a new method, and is one that banks should be able to adapt to the demands of the new Open Banking environment. The stakes are high – if they can demonstrate success in this area, providers will be able to create a great customer experience for payments, whilst keeping security uncompromised.”

(Source: Gibbs Hybrid)

The answer is that they are so much more. In a study released today, Dun & Bradstreet revealed data that uncovers the changing role finance leaders play in stewarding their organisation’s customer experience, a mandate traditionally viewed as one of the chief marketing officer. Because positive business results are often fuelled by great customer experiences, chief financial officers are increasingly using data and analytics to become customer-obsessed to ensure their organisation’s customer strategy is rooted in insights that will drive favourable outcomes.

The Customer-Obsessed Finance Leader, a study commissioned by Dun & Bradstreet and conducted by Forrester Consulting, found:

• 36% of company finance executives surveyed were identified as customer-obsessed Leaders, making customer-focused initiatives a top priority this year and reporting increases in customer acquisition, retention, and satisfaction.
• Customer-obsessed finance Leaders reported year-over-year increases in revenue, profitability, and cash-flow at a rate of 10 to 30%age points greater than their less advanced peers.
• Data and insights-driven companies are 39% more likely to report year-over-year revenue growth of 15% or more.
• 79% of customer-obsessed Leaders indicated that their organisation will likely increase spending on technology applications to support customer engagement.
• Implementation of a customer-obsessed strategy requires mastery of seven data competencies that must be aligned across people, processes, and technologies.

CFOs, with their leadership position, cross-organisational perspective, and ability to understand complex sets of data, are uniquely positioned to implement insights-driven behaviours and processes within their organisations. Investing in the right tools and technology, as well as augmenting internal data with third-party data and analytics are some of the key actions leading finance executives are taking.

Challenges to becoming truly customer-obsessed persist; disconnected strategies within the organisation, disparate data, inconsistent metrics, and a lack of investment in technology are among respondents’ most cited obstacles.

The study further outlines seven critical data competencies to master, qualities and resulting metrics that set customer-obsessed finance leaders and followers apart, and how-to strategies to focus efforts around using data and analytics to become a customer-obsessed organisation.

The survey, fielded within North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific in February 2017, included feedback from 250 finance executives (CFOs or EVPs of finance) from companies in multiple industries generating $150 million or more in revenue.

(Source: Dun & Bradstreet)

With the introduction of the Insurance Act 2015, everything changed, and one year ahead of its implementation, Tanmaya Varma, Global Head of Industry Solutions at SugarCRM, tells Finance Monthly about the impact it’s had on the market, its insurers and customers.

It’s no secret that the insurance industry is one of the most cut throat when it comes to customer loyalty. With competitive rates available at the click of a button on price comparison websites, customers have the freedom to pick and choose their providers with minimal effort, from the comfort of their homes. The abundance of insurance companies in the market means they are on a constant uphill struggle to provide not only a competitive price, but a customer experience that sets them apart from the rest. With Gartner estimating that 89% of organisations now compete solely on this, this is the new benchmark of success for insurers.

In a competitive market, retaining that loyal ‘golden customer’ is challenging. Insurers need to show they are evolving to meet the needs of modern customers, and are not just companies who do little more than churn out cheap holiday or housing cover. Research from The Institute of Customer Service revealed an increase in customer satisfaction from July - December 2016 compared to the six months before it, with a number of insurers listed in the Top 50 organisations for customer satisfaction, such as LV and Aviva. Despite this, the sector still experienced a 9.9 point drop in Net Promoter Score, a figure which summarises the overall neglect and disconnect between insurers and their customers.

So what are insurers already doing to address this, and what more can they do to improve customer loyalty?

Changing laws

It’s clear that how insurers treat their customers is being monitored at the highest level. Prior to 2016, the insurance industry had been left to stagnate. In a sense, it was an industry complacent with its low retention rates and poor customer service. This changed last year with the introduction of the Insurance Act 2015 which set a new precedent – with BIBA  marking it the “the biggest change in insurance laws in 100 years.”

The introduction of the Insurance Act promised to deliver greater transparency between companies and consumers. In an industry notorious for false claims, well-hidden small print and poor customer service, the shift was a much needed one. With this new act underway, it’s now more essential than ever that insurers have access to up-to-date data.

Providers were also instructed to improve communications across all channels to ensure clarity at all points in the customer journey. There is also an onus on customers to ensure they’re providing the correct information, and understand the policies they are signing up to.

Turning to technology

The right technology is of paramount importance to any customer-facing business. Insurers must harness tech to empower employees to work more efficiently.  One way this can be done is through customer relationship software systems, which allow customer data to be collected, stored and managed to deliver a 360-degree view of the customer.

By giving employees everything they need at the press of a button, this can help alleviate lengthy, confusing calls and improve the customer experience.  An easily-accessible system can deliver increased efficiency, better communication and happier customers. If we consider that in a survey conducted by Realwire 68% of questions asked digitally are inaccurately answered, it’s essential that insurers become more digitally focused and capable.

Some insurers are already adopting a digitally forward stance. The insurer Lemonade, for example, developed a virtual assistant at the start of 2017 called Jim who is able to process insurance claims in seconds. This virtual assistant reflects the advancements of AI and how some insurers recognise the power of tech. Realwire’s study concludes that with 91% of consumers saying good digital customer service from insurers makes them more loyal, it’s essential that insurers can deliver this.

The importance of the human touch 

The benefits, and potential, of technology as part of the customer experience are endless, but have their limitations. Yes, there have been significant advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the rise of the chatbot is a forever trending topic. But despite a continued integration of AI in to customer service, research by Vanson Bourne concludes that 91% of respondents still preferred to contact a real person.

AI is great in automating mundane tasks, and taking care of repetitive jobs where humans don’t add value. But, so far, a robot can’t empathise with a distraught traveller half way across the world who wants to check the small print of their holiday insurance policy. That’s something that only a human can do at present. This is proven further through SugarCRM and Flamingo’s research, that found that three quarters of people surveyed still aren’t happy with talking to chatbots – a figure which clearly translates across all industries.

The future of the customer experience

Machines are great at automating repetitive tasks, and chatbots are undoubtedly becoming more sophisticated – and at a growing rate. But the real benefits of technology appear when it aids and empowers employees, and helps customers be autonomous in self-service functions where the human touch isn’t needed.

For an industry that, according to Realwire, saw a 47% decline in performance in 2016, it’s essential that insurers act quickly to evaluate the customer experience they offer at every touchpoint. The insurance industry has generally been slow to adopt a better digital approach, but, when customer dissatisfaction is often rife, it could be the difference between keeping or losing a customer.

We’re living in a data rich world. IBM estimates that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. This means it’s crucial that businesses keep control of their sensitive customer data. Tanmaya Varma,  Global Head of Industry Solutions at SugarCRM, illustrates to Finance Monthly the true potential of data use in the financial services sector.

For banks in particular, the safe and efficient storage of data is not just a ‘nice to have’ but a requirement governed by legislation and industry standards. I believe that whether on-premise or in the cloud, banks should strive to capture all their customers’ data together in one place. Why? Because it will empower employees with the right information to give customers the best experience possible.

Bringing together data streams

Perhaps more than any other industry, financial services firm have a huge number of channels to collect customer data from; in-branch, over the phone, via social media platforms. This means they need to have the right data systems in place which can bind together all of their data to build a complete picture of a customer.

The right system needs to bring together front-office data – calls, meetings, leads, opportunities – and back-office data – accounts, transactions, delivery schedules, fulfilment and so on. There is also a need, particularly for capital markets, to have external data integrated, for example LinkedIn data (where did this prospect use to work?) and trading figures.

In terms of where the data is stored, in my experience banks generally choose to keep their customer data in the cloud. No modern business – bank or otherwise – should keep their customer data in siloes, as this immediately breaks a 360-degree view of the customer.

Meeting customer expectations

Today’s customers expect the best experience possible. The instantaneous pace we now live at doesn’t leave much time for patience – so consumers expect an instant response to their demands.  This means customer-facing employees need to have easy access to their customers’ background as soon as the interaction begins, if they are to stand a chance of delivering the best possible experience.

Customers need to know that, regardless of the channel, they’ll receive the same level of service and understanding of their needs and expectations. This all amounts to the overall customer experience, which is crucial when customers are faced with so much choice. The threat of losing customers because of bad service is very real. According to Accenture’s UK research, 34% of customers who switched financial providers in 2014 did so because of a poor customer service.

All customer-facing teams (sales, marketing, customer service and so on) therefore need to have the right tools in place. Technology should empower employees in their interactions with customers; giving them all the information they need, when they need it. For example, providing clear information on the customers’ previous interactions (when did they last contact us? What other products do they hold with us?) – to enable a seamless experience which proves to the customer they are valued and understood.

Turning to technology

Looking ahead, AI will become increasingly important for banks when it comes to the customer journey. Many banks are already open to the possibilities of machine learning – and it has to be said, the capabilities of chatbots is becoming very impressive. Swedbank’s web assistant Nina, for example, now has an average of 30,000 conversations per month and can handle more than 350 different customer questions.

But the customer experience depends on both the quality of the data, and how well employees can use it to then bring insight to their interactions. In my opinion, customer-facing employees and technology should work side by side to enrich the customer experience. The role of chatbots, virtual reality, NLP and so on should be to bring efficiencies to business operations, particularly when it comes to automating tasks and processes where humans don’t add value. In fact, a recent report by Accenture found 79% of banking professionals agree that AI will revolutionise the way they gain information from and interact with customers.

If banks rise to the challenge to store and manage all their data together, and their employees are supported with the right training and technology to quickly access customer data and understand – and even pre-empt – their needs, they’ll be on the path to success.