One of the most important part of consumer management in any sector is meeting customer’s expectations. The banking industry has been through many different phases in past and today with growing competition, this industry is striving to gain more and more customers and in order to do so, each and every bank is trying their best to improve their current services and introduce new services to increase customer satisfaction. Consumer Management is no longer an optional thing to practice, it is a critical success factor.
As this is an era of competition and acting smartly is not enough if the actions are not taken quickly. The fintechs are growing aggressively in the market by creating a seamless personalized experience for the consumers, the banking industry seems to fall behind if the actions are not taken faster than ever before. So, Consumer Management in banking is a solution which helps banks manage customers and understand their needs better in order to provide the right solution quickly.
Consumer Management is not an easy task, it requires an in-depth knowledge of the industry and a tailored approach to solve problems and overcome the shortcomings. In banking business consumer management process should consist of the following:
· Maintaining one to one relationship with your valuable customers (as it is not possible to do the same with each and every customer). It has been seen in past that maintain one to one relationship makes your customer loyal and at times ignores some of your shortcomings which others won’t.
· Consumer management process should integrate employees, customers, processes and technology to maximize the possibilities of process simplification. It also helps in maintaining relation with all types of customers.
· Technological innovation is necessary as it enables banks to customize their products and offerings as per consumer needs. It also gives a way to introduce machine learning and artificial intelligence in the banking industry which will help in directly competing with fintech sector.
These steps will further lead to the following:
1. Allowing the customer to self-service- These days, consumers want to get more and more self-reliant as it helps them to do the tasks at their convenience.
2. Staying consistent across all touchpoints- One of the survey from Ernst & Young mentioned that consumers like to access banking on different devices (i.e. mobile phones, laptops and tablets) and many times their bank does not have that much technology-friendly software.
3. Educating customers on financial literacy- Educating current and potential customers financial literacy help them make more informed decisions and reduce the burden on bank’s employees.
4. Embracing financial technology- Catching up with technology will help in exploring mobile payment options, using biometrics to increase security, enhance marketing options and reaching each and every customer irrespective of geographical location.
5. Becoming business advisors and financial consultants- These things will help a bank to employ more talented people who can advise small business and give consultancy to the customers in need. So, a bank is not just being a lender instead it is also providing consultancy to those in need. This was mentioned by McKinsey in one of their study.
There is a process known as “Customer Relationship Management” which when applied in business results in:
§ Establishing a need-based and customer-centric business model
§ Personalising customer relationship at scale
§ Delivering digital first engagements
§ Making marketing efforts more effective
§ Increasing banker’s productivity
So consumer management is a long term approach that has to be adopted strategically. The people who are responsible for delivering consumer-based model to the organization are most informed about these strategic benefits and the efforts that are needed to put in for the transformation. Once this transformation is completed it pays off in the form of better profits, more customers, ease of process, employee relaxation and widening the business platform into other areas of banking and finance industry.
By
Prakhar Sharma
Second-year student of IFMR GSB Krea University