Finance: When the Web is your most important channel
As more and more customers demand online services, financial companies are under increasing pressure to improve the service they provide. The finance industry needs to provide not only timely subject matter expertise, but a streamlined online process for a wide variety of customers.
Description
Everything on-line?
Financial services are ideal for the online channel. Together with the travel & tourism industry, the financial sector was a pioneer in online marketing and customer management. But things are never as simple as they seem.
Having encouraged customers to use the online channel some years ago, financial institutions are now re-opening offices for face-to-face service. Yet the online channel has still increased in importance. Both B2B and B2C environments offer a huge number of products and services online.
The financial sector needs to maintain consistent online communication for many different target audiences. Add the effect of globalization into the mix and you soon see that the finance industry requires sensitivity to local laws, cultures and language in order to be effective in the online channel.
From bank to shop
Banks regularly reorganize their distribution channels to reach out to customers. Currently the ‘shop’ concept is rather popular where banks (and some insurance companies) offer their customers trendy looking shops where they can inform themselves about all kinds of financial products and services.
At other, more remote places, kiosks can be found offering similar services yet without personnel. The key challenge in these new distribution concepts is to guarantee that all product and customer-related data is consistent across all channels. This situation requires communication and self-service driven content management solutions that support all online and offline channels.
Insurance – self-service
Insurance products are increasingly commoditized.
Customers can easily buy healthcare, car or travel insurance online, directly from insurance companies or from intermediaries. To make this work, a solid combination between content management and online applications is crucial.
Building a platform where both content management and online applications integrate seamlessly together is a great challenge for both the business side as well as the IT managers at insurance companies.
Compliance & consistency
When financial interests are at stake, compliance comes into play. Financial corporations are, by default, international organizations that must deal with local rules and regulations. In this context, there is a delicate balance to strive for between central control and local flexibility.
You have to be certain that you can control your brand and product conditions centrally while empowering your local business owners so that they can meet local requirements. From a content management perspective, it goes way beyond translating some text. It requires local input from those who understand both the culture and legislation surrounding money and finance in any given situation.
Benefits
Customer loyalty
SDL Tridion R5 allows you to maximize your customer loyalty efforts. Personalization & profiling features give you the opportunity to offer the right content to your customers for both push and pull marketing strategies.
Brand control
Many of our customers in the finance sector need to manage multiple brands in a global environment. Only SDL Tridion can really make this happen cost-effectively, reliably and efficiently. Our BluePrinting™ technology is key in making this work for you.
Effective e-business
For financial institutions, the Web truly has become the most important business channel. Nowadays some have more than 50 percent of their business transacted online. Online banking is by far the most popular online application. Embedding that in a solid WCM environment is what dozens of banks and insurance companies across the globe do with SDL Tridion Web Content Management.
SDL Tridion solutions support Web, e-mail and print
We understand the balance that needs to exist between the online and the offline marketing channels. Assuring brand and message consistency is crucial between online and offline channels. Many of our customers use the SDL Tridion WCM solution to support multi-channel delivery. Read our ABN AMRO case study.