Four ways for financial institutions to derive greater value from customer feedback and employee insights.
It is no surprise that 'innovation' is the word on every leader's lips. We stand at a major inflection point in the history of business: the tipping point from businesses being human-led to being technology-led. This transformation has significant structural implications for today's organisations, especially in the financial services sector. However, organisations risk becoming overwhelmed not only by the ever-increasing number of technologies but also by the impact of those technologies throughout the business, from long-term strategic planning to day-to-day operations.
Simply put, many financial institutions are threatened by this pace of change. Innovate too slowly and risk losing market share to new entrants and faster competitors; innovate too quickly and risk failure on a large, even catastrophic, scale. Yet as financial institutions look to shape their paths forward, many overlook some of the greatest sources for signals of future change: our customers and employees.
All innovation starts with direction, and proper strategic direction cannot be created without context. This context can take many forms, from macroeconomic, demographic and customer trends to ethnographic research and other targeted inquiries. These inputs are collectively known as signals of change. As discussed in KPMG's deep-dive report on changing customer behaviour, Me, My Life, My Wallet (PDF 2.9 MB), these signals show the root causes behind customers' decision-making processes and provide insight into how and why customer behaviour is changing. Armed with this information, organisations can predict not only current trends but also future demand, creating the foundation for a forward-looking innovation strategy that responds to emerging needs.
However, while many organisations have processes to track and monitor large shifts in markets and customer mindset, smaller signals of change – even those that form early signals of market inflection – can often go unnoticed for weeks, months or even years.
Today, institutions are waking up to the fact that micro trends surrounding customer behaviour, employee feedback and more are all 'gold dust': seemingly inconsequential when viewed alone, but together creating something of far greater value. However, properly gathering, assessing and using this information requires a shift in mindset. Rather than thinking about customer satisfaction, employee feedback – or even, broadly speaking, innovation strategy – financial institutions need to think about the process of transforming insight into action.
Consumers, especially in younger generations, have fundamentally changed how we all interact with brands, where and how we shop, and what we expect of the organisations with which we engage. Digital firms and online retailers are increasingly raising the bar for what constitutes a great customer experience, from methods and ease of interactions to expected response times. Increasingly, these customer expectations are permeating the financial services industry – and many traditional players are falling short. As a result, customer feedback provides valuable insight into not only pain points and frustrations of today's consumers, but also their current expectations for base-level customer experience.
Employees, too, are a great source of signals of change for two reasons. Not only do they have direct on-the-ground experience with customer needs, wants and behaviours, but they are also consumers themselves. There may often be a disconnect between individuals' experiences and wants as a customer and their experiences in the workplace environment. Employees are generally underwhelmed by enterprise technology as compared to consumer technology; this is especially true in financial institutions for which legacy technology still provides the organisation's operational backbone.
Employees with front-end customer engagement experience often have significant insights into not only patterns of customer behaviour, but also the 'whys' of customer motivations and pain points that influence demand. However, while front-end employees understand the issues, they often lack the power to influence or create change. The failure to listen to the employee base or provide the mechanisms to enable them to spark transformational change is akin to washing gold dust down the drain.
Organisations seeking to derive greater value from customer and employee insights are recommended to:
Fact is, with the current pace of change, organisations need to constantly monitor their environments for signals of change that occur both inside the industry and without, and rebalance their innovation priorities at least once a year. Once this monitoring strategy is in place, customers and front-line employees can not only be great sources for signals of change, but they can also provide innovative ideas and inspiration for execution.
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