Smart Engagement Tactics For Financial Services Onboarding
A while back I opened a business checking account and something odd happened.
Upon opening the account, I was given a few brochures and was subscribed to a chain of emails with lots of general business tips and updates. Pretty standard.
Here’s the strange part: Not one piece of the onboarding material was personalized for me. Nor was it useful.
If you’re a small bank or fintech company, you have a unique opportunity. The onboarding process allows you to transform your new customers into advocates for your brand. But be warned: There is an extremely short window of time to make this happen.
The Power of Personalization
The good news is, your customers have already chosen you over the competition. The bad news? That doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll stay. To boost customer retention, you need to know two critical things about your customers.
First, you need to understand WHY your customers have chosen you. Second, you need to understand WHAT they’re hoping to accomplish with your product or service. This requires a deep understanding of your customer segments and personas.
It means moving from, “Hey everyone, here’s some generic small business information” to “Hey small business owner, here’s a set of information that’s specific to you and will help you use this product or service to accomplish your first year business goals.”
Which message would you pay attention to?
How to Stay Relevant To Your Customers
You can utilize this level of personalization not only in onboarding, but also throughout the customer lifecycle to create a more engaging experience. For example, if someone is writing a lot of checks, you can offer to help them set up online banking to monitor their balance. Then, you can show them how it automatically integrates with Quicken so they can better manage their finances.
This requires taking the time to look at your customer’s behavior and figure out what they’re trying do and ultimately accomplish.That extra time means you’ll be able to meet their expectations and help them reach their goals when you have a better understanding of how your services fit into their lives.
Instead of a service provider and an institution that simply holds money, you’re establishing yourself as a trusted advisor and problem solver.
When You Lose Relevance, You Lose Permission
Engaging the customer can backfire if your attempts to engage stray too far from how and why the customer uses your services.
I continue to receive irrelevant small business emails from my bank. Why? The bank doesn’t know why I opened the account in the first place, and it shows in the marketing nonsense they’ve continued to send.
But if they knew, hypothetically speaking, that I opened the account because I have an investment property, they could notify me of changes in laws or other helpful info that’s relevant to my situation.
When relevance is lost, you lose the customer’s permission to engage.
It’s the Results You Help Deliver, Not the Services You Offer
If someone uses your micro-investing service to automatically invest their spare change, it’s not because they woke up one morning with a burning desire to use a micro investing service.
They want to save more money because their goal is to be financially independent.
Understanding the role your organization plays in the life of each of your customers is critical. From a tactical standpoint, it helps you figure out the best way to engage them. When you know what people want to achieve and what they expect from you, you can deliver the right message on the right channel at the right time.
