Collapse the sales cycle from years to day
When customers open a checking account, they eventually open other accounts, right? Not necessarily. Sixty percent of customers have only one account with financial institutions, and it takes an average of three years for a customer to open another account. You can collapse your sales cycles from years to days by adding one approach to your account opening process.
The industry average for a customer to open at least three accounts in 3-7 years. Why? One explanation for this time lag is that many financial institutions don’t fully leverage customer data to identify customer needs. A second factor is that the complex array of existing and new products makes it even more difficult for bankers to recommend well-targeted products.
Failing to present the right opportunities results in customers staying with the account they already have. We can see lost opportunities by looking at checking accounts. On average, US adults claim they have used the same primary checking account for more than 14 years. The good news is banks have a lot of time to increase share of wallet with these customers. The not-so-good news is that a weak understanding of the customer will cause many needs-based opportunities to fall through the cracks extending the sales cycle more.
Gen Z and the emerging Gen Alpha don’t have traditional checking accounts, only online virtual accounts. How do you capture that market? We will tackle that in another blog post soon.
Understanding the needs of customers increases share of wallet
Understanding customer needs is the key to guiding them to appropriate products all along the customer journey, as their behaviors and needs shift over time. Having unique and personalized data at the time of engagement allows the FIs to fulfill the customer’s needs, increasing the share of wallet today and into the near future.
Conversations before the OAO journey gather pertinent information allowing conversations to be geared into the right personalized direction the customer needs to go and understand all the goodness your FI has offer.
The data gathered must be consistent whether an account is opened online or at a branch. Over time, a comprehensive, accurate, real-time profile of the customer emerges, enabling the rep to keep the conversation going in the right direction.
Further, visibility enables reps to explain options in detail, help customers understand each product’s benefits, and gain their trust. These factors build relationships that support expanding customer assets. Without it, an opportunity to further engage the customer has flown out the window.
The One Approach You Need to Add Prior to OAO Process
It’s simple. You lose valuable opportunities if you don’t ask the right questions, before the OAO process, leverage that data, and have more productive conversations. Suppose you add conversation guides to both your online and in-person consultation. In that case, you will discover the individual’s needs and accurately match your products and services that fulfill those needs, which saves many months of calling, writing, emailing, advertising, etc., to win that next product for your bank/credit union. The OAO process is then competed more often as the users has a reason to want to complete the complicated and friction-filled process.
The data you gather keeps the conversation going, and your opportunities will grow exponentially with better conversion.
Continuously promoting intelligent conversations delivers important benefits to the customer and the financial institution, including:
- Information gathered through logical conversation pathways adds value at all touchpoints
- Representatives that ask the right questions can make more accurate recommendations
- Helping customers understand how products meet their needs makes them more receptive
- Stronger customer relationships increase trust in the banker’s recommendations
- As conversations progress, the financial institution gains customer retention and loyalty
In short, combining the benefits of leveraging data and having well-focused conversations with customers leads to one place: Developing loyal customers that are receptive to new financial opportunities for increased revenue and profitability.
Profitability and Loyalty Hit Your Bottom Line
When you add a guided conversation guide before the OAO process, it collects the data you need to collapse your sales cycles in 3 ways to achieve more profitable revenue growth at a reduced cost of sale:
- Collapse the sales cycle to enroll customers in new (and more profitable) accounts
- Collapse the time to additional accounts
- Collapse the time-to-customer profitability by selling multiple products per interaction.
Contact us to learn more about how to add guided conversations before the OAO process to open more accounts, generate more revenue, and grow faster.
