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New competition and new customers continue to fuel the need for digital transformation and prioritizing these efforts sit high up on the five-year strategy of any bank. These days, new competition can come in many forms - from the online retail giant who also provides credit services to the neo bank focusing only on retirement products. And with the digital native millennial population in their prime spending years, banks have had to adapt to deliver to this new, growing customer base who is extremely finicky about their buying experience.
The onus to deliver such experiences falls on the relationship managers (RMs) of the banks. By cultivating and developing relationships with customers, RMs identify opportunities and in the process create avenues for cross selling and upselling products – responsibilities that deliver the desired outcomes for a bank.
Rapid digitization is turning around traditional roles and responsibilities. While customers have a personal relationship with their money, in the rat race to expand their digital capabilities, many banks are already culling branches and reducing headcount. But there is no substitute for face-to-face contact if you are counting on someone to manage your life savings.
RMs must shift their mindset from delivering desired outcomes to the bank to delivering desired outcomes to their customers. How different can this turned-around approach be? Let’s look at some of the top-of-mind questions for someone investing their life savings:
- What kind of financial planning do I need?
- What kind of portfolio should I build?
- How often do I need to re-evaluate my portfolio?
- How do I tackle inflation and plan for retirement?
No online search or big, blue ‘click to buy’ button can help the customer here. They need personalized interactions with an expert. This is where the relationship manager can help. Through deep insight into the bank’s portfolio of products and a sound understanding of a customer's need, the RM should be able to build a solution for the customer. And build it fast.
No Advisory Without Knowledge
Traditionally, customer interactions have been a bit of a push service from the relationship manager - more so when there are targets to meet. So, the RM learns and studies that specific product and pitches it to all the customers who call or visit, sometimes for completely other requirements.
This approach falls short and depletes customer experience. Unless the RM knows every product from the bank’s portfolio and tells the customer, “Hey, while this product is new and amazing, what you really need is the other one.” This enabling interaction happens when the bank removes product-specific targets and encourages RMs to view the customer from a 360-degree perspective and the bank portfolio from a 360-degree view.
And only sustained skilling and reskilling will shape this strategy.
No Advisory Without Technology
Skilling is incomplete without intelligent insight into customers. There are truckloads of data in the bank, but seldom being mapped and put to good use. For example, suppose a customer’s requirement is unique, a challenge for the RM. Now what if this was already solved by another RM, for another customer, in another branch? Such scenarios need to be recorded and the outcomes and best practices be made available to every RM to improve the outcome of customer engagements.
Beyond skilling, there is also the challenge of scale. A trusted financial advisor designs a long-term investment plan for one client. But what about the 500+ other customers she is managing? This brings to the fore the challenge of solving for scale. And beyond this, how do they respond in real time so they do not miss the right ‘window’ with a customer before clients lose interest?
AI/ML are the X factors here - not buzzwords. If banks can leverage the tools out there to bridge skill gaps, bring in the insight and the scale - relationship managers will be poised to help banks through this transformative time. And this is exactly what new competition is leveraging to create granular customer profiles and pre-map financial products that would be most relevant to their customers.
As banks mature in their transformation journey, the gamut of digital services to the customers is going to increase and the dependency on RMs for obvious, mundane information will diminish. Banks have a small window to reskill and nurture RMs to a far more meaningful role of delivering superior customer experience and retaining a capable workforce.
Yamini Bhat is the co-founder & CEO of Vymo