How can we consistently think from the customer’s perspective in banking?

Traditional segmentation criteria (assets under management, domicile, age) serve internal bank needs – but not customer satisfaction. Replace them with a target group formation based on needs with corresponding performance promises.

Design philosophy hpo

1. Not all customers are the same!
2. The combination of factors that influence the behaviour of bank customers allows the identification of personas that represent homogeneous target groups.
3. The needs of bank customers are influenced by several factors, including
   
   • their basic orientation (values)
     
   • their financial affinity (knowledge and interests), and
     
   • the origin of the money (heir, entrepreneur, employee).
4. By analyzing the customer journey, the “journey” of the customer to satisfy a need, direct and indirect contact points (so-called “moments of truth” or “pain points”) can be identified, described and differentiated according to personas.

Practice proven approach

• Understanding the current customer segmentation
• Hypothesis-driven design of demand-oriented target groups and performance promises:
  
  • Description of different personas as representatives of target groups
    
  • Customer-journey workshops with customer advisors and segment and product managers from the bank to identify the needs and requirements of these personas
    
  • Derivation of target group-specific performance targets in response to customer expectations
    
  • Testing of the project results with bank customers as representatives of the personas described to identify possible internal errors in thinking efficiently
    

The target group-oriented performance promises must be reflected in the product and service portfolio. Develop the service as well as the way it is delivered to the customer and make it available for daily business.

Design philosophy hpo

1. Innovation is a crucial factor in driving the organic growth of companies.
2. According to our understanding, innovation comprises all activities that enable a company to offer new products and services to customers in the future, to develop necessary competencies, and to further develop the company in General.
3. For banks to be able to offer needs-based products and services to their customers in the future, they must:
   
   • understand their future needs, derive performance promises from them and build up the necessary skills for various innovation stages (fundamentals – technologies – products and services) or purchase them via partners, and
     
   • implement innovation structures that are different from day-to-day business and enable portfolio-based innovation that is actively applied thanks to user-friendly tools.
     

Practice-proven approach

• Analysis of the future needs of the target groups and the perceived value of the bank services
• Design of the derived value proposition structure (services to be generated in day-to-day business and necessary preliminary services)
• Design of the innovation architecture, which describes the capabilities for the (further) development of the company and its products and services
• Construction of an innovation machine (process model with stage-gate logic to control specific innovation processes) and anchoring in the organisation
• Digitization of the innovation machine with the help of a user-friendly management tool
  

Today, customers want to deal with simple requests online. For complex issues, they ask for seamless multi-channel advice. Translate changing customer behavior into end-to-end processes and structures with multi-channel capability that also relieve customer advisors of administrative tasks.

Design philosophy hpo

1. The first step is to understand the relevant customer segments, their needs, the value proposition, and the derived benefits (products, services, inputs).
2. Following this, all the activities are defined that are absolutely necessary along the customer life cycle to create this service.
3. According to the required competencies, these activities are “cascaded” and “segmented” to create:
   
   • consistent and measurable end-to-end responsibilities;
     
   • clearly defined interfaces, and
     
   • process variants according to the business case.
   • Finally, the processes are anchored in the organisation.
     

Practice-proven approach

• Analysis of the current services, roles, and responsibilities of front-, mid-, and back-office areas of the bank along the customer life cycle
• Analysis of business unit strategies and representative business incidents
• Design of a multi-channel and competence-based business process model to increase customer orientation and thus sales effectiveness and efficiency
• Development of a pilot concept for an optimized customer service process to relieve the customer advisors of administrative tasks
• Rollout with support from professional change  management expertise

Break up the thinking and acting in bank-internal silo structures and replace it with customer-oriented and process-based organisations. Adapt the profiles of client advisors to the changed conditions and mobilize employees in line with your strategy.

Design philosophy hpo

1. An organisation can only successfully implement a strategy if it has the appropriate cultural foundations  – especially in times when, according to studies, almost 50% of all bank employees no longer identify with their job.
2. Corporate culture is a set of shared values, norms, and attitudes that shape the decisions, actions and behaviour of the members of an organisation.
3. Appearances of the culture can be changed, and thus new values and approaches can be anchored in the organisation.
4. Individual measures to achieve the desired corporate culture (for example, “high market and customer orientation”) can be consolidated into actionable, communicable, and controllable fields of action.
   

Practice-proven approach (example)

A major bank integrated two sales organisations with very different cultures into one powerful new unit utilizing a strategy-based cultural change. The senior managers were involved in this process via interviews, and around 10% of employees were involved via cultural workshops.

This led to significant fields of action in which a common target culture was established through a targeted change in so-called “material manifestations,” which provided optimal support for the new strategic direction. This included, for example, defined career models or new advisory processes with a clear specialist and management model and a more focused approach with a higher client contact rate.