What is the biggest challenge for your financial institution? If you’re like nearly a third (29.3 percent) of financial institution executives, you’ll say it’s driving growth and profitability. There are many avenues for growth, of course, including branch staff, online initiatives, direct mail and lending teams. But one surprising and frequently ignored growth channel is your contact center.
Financial institutions traditionally have overlooked contact centers as potential sales and revenue generators. According to one study, 62 percent of contact centers are perceived as cost centers by the rest of their organizations. But what if you chose to look at your contact center from a different perspective?
What if your contact center was the key to growth?
One obvious way to generate growth for your financial institution is to use your contact center for outbound campaigns. But there’s bigger opportunity than just bringing in new deposits and loans. Engaging your account holders, meeting their needs, and decreasing negative customer experiences can have a measurable impact on the bottom line, too.
According to Gallup, one of the most powerful drivers of customer engagement is call center interaction with a live person, second only to an in-person branch visit. Account holders who experience a satisfactory interaction with a call center are 14 times more likely to be engaged with their bank – and that’s with just a satisfactory experience! But how does engagement equal growth?
Engage with your account holders for long-term growth
If you want to increase loyalty and growth, focus on better engagement with your account holders. Account holders who feel satisfied and fully engaged with their financial institution are more likely to open new accounts, consider cross-sell opportunities, recommend their financial institution to friends and family, and sign up for additional products and services. All of these can bring increased growth, providing both short- and long-term financial benefits to your institution.
It’s just as important to know that account holders who are engaged with their financial institution are less likely to move their accounts to a different institution. Simply increasing your account holder retention rate by 5 percent can grow profits by 25 to 95 percent.
There’s another risk to not focusing on customer engagement and a positive customer experience. Each time an account holder has a negative experience with your financial institution, there’s more than a 50 percent chance that you’ll lose that account holder. And for those who remain after a bad experience, it can take as many as 12 positive interactions to make up for one unresolved negative experience.
Given the importance of customer satisfaction and engagement, your contact center plays a critical role in your financial institution’s growth and overall success. It’s time to see the contact center through a different lens – one that reveals its strategic value and growth-generating potential!
> Download Vericast’s “10 Must-Know Contact Center Lessons From Digital Conversions” article.
