How a Customized Banking CRM Gives Financial Institutions the Edge
With digital disruptors and fintechs posing an ever-increasing challenge to traditional banking, it’s clear that banks and credit unions need a CRM to keep up and to offer the customized experience that customers expect. But not all CRMs are created equal. Managing customer relationships can be challenging in the increasingly complex banking landscape, and it’s a challenge that all-purpose CRMs often fall short in meeting.
Enter the banking CRM, a powerful tool designed specifically for the unique needs of banks and credit unions. A banking CRM gives an institution an advantage over competitors that a general-purpose CRM often fails to provide: tailored solutions to their very specific challenges.
6 Advantages of Banking CRMs over All-purpose CRMs
While all-purpose CRMs have their benefits, banking CRMs offer a number of advantages that can help banks stay ahead of the curve.
1. Deep integration with banking systems
Banking CRMs offer a level of integration with your bank’s core banking system that an all-purpose CRM simply can’t match. Because they are tailored to the industry, they also have the built-in capability to integrate with the various banking systems, such as digital banking platforms, wealth management and trust systems, and loan origination systems.
The result? Bankers are able to access real-time customer information, providing them with a full view of their customers’ relationship with the bank—without the need to maneuver between multiple systems. And for customers, this translates into a more seamless and beneficial experience.
Compare this to all-purpose CRMs, which are designed to work with a variety of industries. Their general nature can make it challenging to integrate them fully with a bank’s unique systems and workflows. For example, data silos may occur, requiring bankers to manually transfer or input customer data across multiple systems. This can lead to increased inefficiency, data errors, and a slower, clunkier customer experience.
2. Compliance with banking regulations
In the highly regulated financial services industry, regulatory compliance is a top priority for all financial institutions. From anti-money laundering regulations to Know Your Customer (KYC) laws, banks need to meet a wide variety of legislative requirements. Compliance isn’t optional, and non-compliance paves the way for legal actions and severe fines and penalties—not to mention the damage to a bank’s reputation and the erosion of its customers’ trust.
Compliance requires the maintenance of accurate, up-to-date records of customer information and transactions. Unlike all-purpose CRMs, banking CRMs are built to handle the ability to automate compliance-related tasks. With the ability to monitor these tasks, a banking CRM makes it easier for your bank to identify potential compliance issues, save time, and reduce the risk of non-compliance.
While general-purpose CRMs may offer some compliance capability, they’re not designed to be specific to the financial services industry. Banks that opt for an all-purpose solution may need to manually customize their CRM to help them ensure they stay compliant.
3. Bank-centric workflow customization
Banks have unique business processes and workflows, so their ideal CRM should have robust customization options to align with them. For example, a bank might want to adapt its CRM to match onboarding protocols, sales workflows, and customer service resolution procedures.
Other customization points include the creation of custom fields and forms that allow banks to capture the specialized data points they need. Banks also need to customize reporting functions and dashboards to reflect key performance indicators, such as new business, customer retention rates, and service standards.
All-purpose CRMs generally don’t provide this level of customization. For example, a general-purpose CRM may not be able to offer specialized workflows for the different banking business lines, such as commercial, retail, wealth management, and other business services.
4. Powerful data analytics capabilities
Today’s banks and credit unions generate vast amounts of customer and financial data, including customer demographics, transaction history, and account balances. This data represents a wealth of information that can be analyzed to identify the emerging patterns and trends and actionable intelligence that drive an institution’s informed decisions.
A banking CRM is designed to handle the breadth and depth of this specialized financial data and provide insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs. From spending patterns to investment preferences and financial goals, a banking CRM provides an institution with access to the type of analytics that is crucial for developing a personalized customer experience.
All-purpose CRMs may not be adequate to handle the scale of an institution’s unique data needs or provide the necessary data analytic capabilities to derive meaningful insights from large amounts of customers’ financial data.
5. Data-driven marketing automation
Compared to other industries, banks and credit unions have specific marketing needs. An all-purpose CRM may offer basic marketing automation capabilities that can be translated across multiple industries, but it isn’t designed for specialized marketing needs, such as relationship management and cross-selling of financial products and services.
Banking CRMs are attuned to these unique needs, and can provide data-driven automation to manage financial institutions’ marketing campaigns and processes more effectively. They are also equipped with compliance features to help ensure marketing campaigns comply with industry standards and regulations.
For example, a banking CRM can use data to segment customers based on their demographic information and financial behavior, including account balances, transaction history, and credit scores. Customer data can also be used to identify cross-selling and up-selling opportunities, and to automate touchpoints to help bankers maintain contact with their customers.
6. Measurement of true account profitability
There’s more to profitability analysis than a customer’s account balance. Banks and credit unions need a 360-degree view of the profitability of their customer relationships to more efficiently develop and implement growth strategies and sales approaches.
Because a banking CRM integrates deeply with an institution’s core banking system and ancillary systems, it can provide quick access to the data that’s critical for profitability analysis. This includes customizable cost allocation and profitability metrics that take into account all costs associated with a customer’s account.
General-purpose CRMs lack the industry-specific tools necessary for a detailed profitability analysis of financial institutions’ unique revenue streams and cost structures. Without access to these tools, banks and credit unions may be left to make assumptions—which can lead to missed opportunities.
Factors to Consider when Choosing a CRM for Your Bank or Credit Union
A CRM system can be a crucial investment for your financial institution: an all-in-one solution for driving profitability, improving customer satisfaction, and increasing productivity. Whether you’re considering a banking CRM or an all-purpose CRM, key factors you should consider include:
Integration capabilities. Look for a CRM system that can integrate seamlessly with your institution’s core banking system and ancillary systems, such as digital, credit cards, loan, and wealth systems. Deeper integration eliminates inefficiencies such as data silos, which can arise when a CRM can’t fully integrate with all relevant systems.
Customization flexibility. From workflows to form fields and reports, your bank or credit union needs a CRM that is customizable, so it can be tailored to fit your institution’s unique needs. This will ensure that the CRM aligns with your business processes and workflows.
Marketing automation. The services and products your institution offers are different from the services and products sold by non-financial industries. This means the CRM you choose needs to be attuned to your institution’s unique marketing needs, whether it’s the creation of select marketing campaigns or tracking the effectiveness of existing campaigns.
Data analytics. The CRM needs to have the ability to analyze the volume of financial data your bank or credit union generates and collects. The scope and scale of this data calls for robust data analysis capabilities, including real-time reporting.
How 360 View Can Help
Whether you’re looking to optimize your financial institution’s operations, increase customer experiences, or build enhanced customer relationships, choosing the right CRM can be a game changer. By selecting a CRM that aligns with your institution’s unique needs and goals, you can stay ahead of the competition.
With more than 20 years of successful implementations in the financial industry, 360 View is a CRM platform developed for bankers by bankers who understand the special needs of banks and credit unions. If you’d like to know more, check out our Getting Started with CRM Guide or schedule a demo to see our product up-close.